Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.18
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
The new Oil and Gas Processing and Petrochemical Complex in Azerbaijan is expected to be commissioned in 2023, Vice-President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) on Investments and Marketing, Elshad Nasirov said in his interview with 'SOCAR plus' magazine.
"The capital expenditures on the project are expected to reach $15 billion. We can confidently state that OGPC will become one of the most important and long-term projects in our economy," he stressed.
OGPC will be located 60 kilometers from Baku and will consist of three processing enterprises and a thermal power plant (TPP).
Nasirov stressed that the implementation of the OGPC project will improve the quality of production, increase the country's export potential and promote the environmental protection in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.
The annual capacity of OGPC's oil refinery will be 8.5-9 million metric tons, gas processing plant -12 billion cubic meters, petrochemical production - over one million metric tons (the capacities of the polyethylene and polypropylene production facilities will be 800,000 metric tons and 300,000 metric tons, respectively).
The cost of the project for construction of the OGPC is estimated at $14.4 billion taking into account the interest payments on loans.
Some $6.1 billion of the total volume of project expenditures will fall to the oil refinery, $3.6 billion - gas processing plant and power generating unit, $2.6 billion - petrochemical complex and the remaining $2.1 billion will fall to the payments on loans.
It is planned to implement some 30-40 percent of the project with the equity, and the remaining part of the work will be carried out by using borrowed capital. The payback period of the project will last 4.5 years. The entire project will be completed in eight years.
Oil products are produced at two Baku oil refineries with a total capacity of 16 million metric tons of oil per year. Both oil refineries belong to SOCAR, which annually processes approximately seven million metric tons of oil, extracted from onshore and offshore fields with SOCAR's own funds.
Edited by CN
