Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Total SA, Europe’s third-largest oil company, is planning to source heavier crudes for its Lindsey refinery in the U.K. as North Sea supplies dwindle.

Total is planning to deepen the approach to the Immingham Oil Terminal, in northeast England, to allow vessels carrying heavier loads from as far as Russia and the Middle East to bring oil for the refinery, the Paris-based company said yesterday.

Total is seeking “flexibility of crude oil supply” by having access to more heavy, sour, highly sulfurous crude grades instead of light, sweet oil from the North Sea, it said.

It’s spending 200 million pounds ($302 million) on equipment that removes sulfur from fuels at the Lindsey oil refinery in order to meet European Union directives on lower carbon-dioxide emissions from vehicles. A so-called hydro-desulfurization unit will be operational by mid-2009, Total said in yesterday’s statement.

The company plans to dredge the estuary by about meters (7 feet) at an estimated cost of 10 million pounds to enable fully laden 15-meter deep vessels to berth, the statement said. That includes part-loaded very large crude carriers, or VLCCs, and carriers transporting standard-size consignments of Russian oil.

The facility currently accepts carriers hauling 80,000 to 85,000 metric tons of oil, whereas Russia routinely supplies minimum consignment sizes of 110,000 tons.

The Lindsey refinery can process 221,000 barrels of oil a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. More than 90 percent of the refinery’s oil is from the North Sea, with occasional supplies from the Mediterranean and Russia, the statement said.

The dredging project will also add as much as 2.5 million pounds to annual maintenance costs for Total and is “vital for the continued viability of the refinery,” it said.

Dredging should begin next summer if regulatory approval is granted, Iain Hutchison, a Total spokesman in the U.K. said by phone yesterday. The proposal will be submitted to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs by the end of the year, after an environmental impact assessment is completed, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nidaa Bakhsh in London at nbakhsh@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 25, 2008 12:00 EST