Mažeikių Nafta is the only oil refinery in the three Baltic states. Picture courtesy of PKN Orlen.

VILNIUS — Polish oil company PKN Orlen announced yesterday that its Lithuanian refinery Mažeikių Nafta, which it bought outright earlier this year, will shut for five to six weeks in October and November 2010 for maintenance.

“We plan to have major renovations next year. The technologies demand that the whole plant be stopped,” PKN Orlen’s Krystian Pater, the new CEO of the Mažeikių refinery, said after a meeting with Lithuania’s Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius.

“This will last five to six weeks in October-November. We are doing everything to shorten the stoppage, and we still have a whole year to prepare,” he added.

The refinery is one of the country’s largest industrial sites and is the only oil refinery in the Baltic states.

The refinery CEO made the comments after meeting with Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius. Photo courtesy of PKN Orlen

The Lithuanian government has recently sold its 9.98 percent stake in the company as a cost-saving measure to lower its budget deficit in light of declining tax revenues caused by the economic crisis.

Under the agreement with PKN Orlen, if the Lithuanian government sells its remaining stake in Mažeikių Nafta (70,750,000 shares) by mid-December 2009, the price of the shares will be $4.02 per share, or US$284.45 million in total.