Press Release

Benzina, Česká rafinérská, and Paramo all took away awards for their significant contributions to the field of crude oil refining, petrochemistry, and petrol stations. A project supported by Unipterol RPA was also among the award winners. Václav Loula, a member of Benzina’s management and the company’s Quality Control Director, received the Person of the Year award.

Prague, 24 October 2008 – Unipetrol group companies or their representatives were successful this year in all competition categories. The most important award at this year’s PETROLaward 08—“Person of the Year”—went to long-time member of Benzina’s management, Mr Václav Loula, Quality Control Director. His contribution to increasing the prestige of the petroleum business was honoured by the awards committee as well as by professionals in the field through Internet voting, with Mr Loula receiving significantly more votes than the other two nominees.
Benzina also scored big in the Petrol Stations category. In public voting, it received the PETROLaward 08 for its original DVD promo event. Benzina was the first to come up with the idea to sell DVDs to customers at affordable prices. It received another award indirectly – the professional panel honoured the ISA Praha project for the design and implementation of the rebranding of the Benzina Plus petrol stations.
The PETROLaward in the Professional and Publication Activities category was given to the unique interactive web portal petroleum.cz developed by the Institute of Chemical Technology Prague, with Česká rafinérská and Paramo also having contributed to its launch. Ekologický centrum Most (Environmental Centre Most) was awarded second place by both professionals in public voting and the panel for its “Chemistry and the Environment” project. This project was the result of cooperation with Unipetrol RPA, which company continues to support it.
Česká rafinérská also received the PETROLaward 08 for successful completion of the Clean Fuels programme, namely for the selective hydrodesulphurisation unit put into operation in the refinery in Kralupy nad Vltavou.  It was awarded twice for this project: both in public voting and by the panel as the best in the given category.
The PETROLawards are organised by PETROLmedia, with this year being the competition’s second year. A total of seven awards are presented, the winners being determined by an awards committee and by professionals in the field via Internet voting. The awards ceremony was the culmination of PETROLsummit 08, which took place on 23 October 2008.

UNIPETROL, a.s. is a group of companies active in the Czech petrochemical industry. In 2005, UNIPETROL became part of PKN ORLEN group, which is the largest refiner of crude oil in Central Europe. UNIPETROL group focuses mainly on crude oil refining, fuel distribution, and petrochemical production.  UNIPETROL group is in all these areas one of the most significant players in the Czech and Central European markets. In the Czech Republic, the group is one of the most important companies in terms of turnover and employs approximately 4500 people.

Contact:
Blanka Růžičková
Public Relations Officer
UNIPETROL, a. s.
Telephone: +420 225 001 407, +420 731 881 111
E-mail: blanka.ruzickova@unipetrol.cz