Orlen Rail

Orlen Rail (Polish: Orlen Kolej), formerly known as Lotos Kolej, is a rail transport company owned by Orlen since 2022, previously having been owned by Grupa Lotos and the Gdańsk Refinery. It was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in the city of Gdańsk. In 1997, Euronaft Trzebinia, the first private industrial railway company in Poland founded after 1989, was created to ship oil coming from a refinery in Trzebinia. In 2001, the Polish State Railways (Polish: Polskie Linie Kolejowe; PKP) were restructured from a single company to several different railway companies all comprising the PKP Group. One of such companies was PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe, which managed the rail infrastructure and had to make a profit, thus opening the door for rapid growth in the private rail sector. Orlen Rail received its license to operate on 20 March 2002, as an arm of the Gdańsk Refinery. On 1 January 2003, the Rail Transport Administration of the Gdańsk Refinery was opened as a separate company, administering the rolling stock of the refinery and its operations. On 8 October, the Administration received permission from PKP PLK to operate on all of its tracks, soon being renamed to Lotos Kolej. On 1 February 2004, Grupa Lotos bought refineries in Czechowice-Dziedzice, Jasło, and Gorlice, which were, from then on, serviced by Lotos Kolej, which conducted its first international transport on 20 April 2007. Despite this, its international services that went to Germany only went as far as Szczecin Gumieńce railway station before relaying their freight to other rail companies.