A legacy for the future

After 2022 the European energy market changed drastically, and biodiesel felt it through 2023 and 2024. Only in 2025 did the market recover its former volumes. It was a tense period.

On the other hand, biofuel entered shipping and, as SAF, aviation. We set up a trading company in Geneva — that is the heart of the fuel trade, where all the information in the world is concentrated.

Production has a serious bearing on Bulgarian agriculture: the Group buys up a large part of the rapeseed and sunflower harvest and produces meal for animal feed. Making biodiesel leaves almost no waste at all.

The plant at Slivo Pole is undergoing a complete modernisation with a new process line. The €25m investment adds 180,000 tonnes of annual capacity and lifts product quality to the highest European standards. Alongside it, a straw-fired steam plant is being built — our own energy instead of dependence on the traditional sources.

A refinery for waste feedstocks — used vegetable and animal oils — has also been built. It opens a new niche: co-processing, in which the feedstocks produced are blended directly with crude oil. The division is strategic for the Group's position in the segment of lower-carbon fuels.

Astra Storage in Devnya is expanding fourfold — the largest investment of 2026. Storage facilities for hazardous fuels are an important part of the business, especially in a crisis. Together with the positions in the Mediterranean region, the Netherlands and Belgium, the expansion means direct access to the main European markets and greater operational flexibility in managing volumes.

The European Union treats rail as the greenest and most strategic form of transport. Its share is set to grow — it is safer, cheaper, and with modernised infrastructure it will also be faster. That matters especially for the Balkans as an overland corridor between Asia and Europe.

We invested in new locomotives — Siemens Smartron and Softronic — and built our own repair depot in Ruse. In a sector where time out of service turns straight into loss, that is a critical advantage.

In mineral fuels we also took a logistical step that widens our geography: deliveries by large gas carriers direct from the USA to the Black Sea.

Logistics does not end at the rail. Port Bulmarket on the Danube at Ruse is the other end of the chain — in 2024 and 2025 it handled over 730,000 tonnes of cargo a year, nearly 30% more than in 2023.

The industrial park is being developed on 176 decares with over 40,000 square metres of built-up area and 12.5 km of internal railway lines. By April–May 2026 the facilities will be ready for full operation — the workshops are finished, the infrastructure is what remains.

The repair shop is working and the new-build shop is at the prototype stage, including a new wagon for liquid bulk. A specialised gassing and degassing bay has also been built, which lets the works operate as a one stop shop.

The works is certified to TSI, ECM, ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001.

The Group's own locomotives alone number more than 100 — enough that the works has its internal workload secured before the first outside order arrives. And outside orders and interest are already there.

The specialised gassing and degassing bay, the locomotive wash and the infrastructure for handling propylene, LPG and fuel oil occupy an area of close to 9 decares. That is where the phrase that carries weight in the trade comes from: one stop shop — a complete service in a single place, which shortens the customer's process cycles and costs. The licence for the works' own type of wagon for Light Mineral Oils, 98 and 88 cubic metres, is in its final stage, and the next step is the gas-carrier line.

The change starts with the most basic thing of all: safety and personal responsibility. Over time, security stopped being an externally imposed requirement and became an internal conviction.

Over the 15 years I have been part of the Group, the growth of the security culture is plain to see — not only as systems and procedures, but as an attitude. That does not happen through one-off campaigns; it happens through persistence: clear rules, consistent enforcement, training and personal example. Persistence is what turns a requirement into a standard.

One of the most important balances is the one between control and trust. Trust is not built with declarations but with behaviour — proved over time and above all at critical moments. The more mature the organisation, the less need there is for additional control.

Cybersecurity is now an everyday reality, and cyberattacks are an industry. Our approach is pragmatic: minimise exposure to the public network, use our own information resources.

Security is directly bound up with the durability of skills: we do not simply train people, we build patterns of behaviour that still hold under stress. It is a good sign that the young colleagues joining the Group increasingly arrive with solid basic preparation — a result of the general technological environment and their everyday practice. Thirty years of growth also mean thirty years of adaptation.