Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.12
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
Azerkimya production association of SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) during the next four years will hold large-scale work on reconstruction and renewal of production facilities, the head of the PA Mukhtar Babayev told Trend Nov.12.
He said that the renovation of facilities should be implemented under the new plans for the continuation of the work of the Baku Oil Refinery named after Heydar Aliyev and the postponement of the commissioning of a new refinery in Azerbaijan till 2030 (planned to be commissioned till 2023-2025 years), which will be established within the framework of the new complex for oil and gas processing and petrochemical production (OGPC).
Currently, it is also planned to study the need for reconstruction of old and construction of new pyrolysis furnace, the expansion of some production units, improvement of product quality, work on optimizing the operation of compressors, many of which need updating, Babayev said. One of the important areas is the establishment of the automated control system that will minimize the human factor.
"These problems are planned to be solved in the next four years," said Babayev.
Speaking about the possible cost of work on reconstruction and renewal, Babayev said that the PA appealed to the licensor for providing suggestions for possible technical works. "The next step will involve solving commercial matters," he said.
It was decided to reconstruct the Baku Oil Refinery named after Heydar Aliyev, and that it will continue to work for another 15 years within the framework of meeting Azerbaijan's fuel needs and taking into account the implementation of major oil and gas projects of SOCAR. In particular, it is planned to conduct the renovation of the plant and construction of 7 or 8 new facilities worth about 1 billion AZN. Work is scheduled to be completed in late 2018 - early 2019. This will increase the capacity of the company from 6 to 8 million metric tons, while production of gasoline up to 3 million metric tons a year.
Oil products are produced at two Baku refineries with a total capacity of 16 million metric tons of oil per year. Both plants are owned by SOCAR, which annually processes approximately 7 million metric tons of oil, extracted onshore and offshore at the expense of its own funds. Only last year, Azerbaijan produced 5.09 million metric tons of the main petroleum products.
Azerbaijan will produce 6.22 million metric tons of oil products in 2015 versus 6.17 million metric tons projected for 2014, according to the government's forecasts. The volume of oil production in the country is forecasted at 6.31 million metric tons per year for 2016-2018.
Regarding the issue of construction of a new refinery in Azerbaijan within the framework of the OGPC project, Gahramanov said that plans are for it to be commissioned in 2030. Capacity of the new plant will amount to 8.6 million metric tons.
Construction of a gas processing plant and an enterprise for the production of petrochemical products are planned t as part of the OGPC first phase; to be implemented by 2020.
The capacity of a gas processing plant will be 12 billion cubic meters per year, while chemical production - 860,000 metric tons of polymer products per year.
OGPC will be located 60 kilometers from Baku and will consist of three processing enterprises and a thermal power plant (TPP).
The OGPC construction project implementation will improve the product quality, enhance the export potential of the country and help protect the environment of the capital.
