BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 19. SOCAR is solving the issue of providing the country with RON-92 gasoline for the period of preventive works, which will last 1-1.5 months, due to the planned shutdown of the Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery in Baku in November, an informed source told Trend.
“During the scheduled shutdown, preventive works will take place at several production units, including gasoline production,” the source said.
According to him, to prevent a shortage of RON-92 gasoline during this period, Azerbaijan is negotiating the import of necessary volumes.
“We are talking about the purchase of about 150,000 tons of gasoline,” the source stated.
Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery produces more than 130,000-140,000 tons of gasoline on average per month.
Meanwhile, a total of 23,000 tons of gasoline remained in refinery warehouses as of September 1.
Azerbaijan produced 973,400 tons of gasoline from January through August 2024, which is 2.3 percent more than the figure for the same period in 2023.
“The country will not have a shortage of gasoline in the last months of the year, this issue will be solved by imports and subsequent production after prevention. The next scheduled preventive maintenance may be done at the refinery in two years,” the source informed.
To note, the refinery currently produces about 30 types of products, including liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, industrial fuel oil, household fuel oil, petroleum coke, bitumen, lubricating oils, as well as liquefied gas fractions, naphtha, and dry gas. Exports account for up to ten percent of all production.
The gasoline produced is used to cover the country's domestic needs.
The refinery produced over 1.46 million tons of gasoline in 2023 (13.4 percent growth by 2022).