Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.17
By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:
The Turkish State Council on Competition approved the sale of 50-percent stake in the "Star" media holding to a local businessman Fettah Tamince, the Turkish "Anadolu" news agency reported Sept.16.
In addition, the State Council on Competition approved the sale of 50-percent stake in the "Dinamik Radyo Televizyon A.Ş." company to Tamince.
SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) has begun negotiations with the Turkish businessman Fettah Tamince to sell its stake in the "Star" local media holding in August 2014.
"We started talks with Fettah Tamince to sell our 50-percent stake in Star media group. If talks succeed, we will exit the media sector to focus on the biggest projects of our country," Kenan Yavuz, chief executive officer at SOCAR Turkey said.
Star media group, which SOCAR jointly owned with businessman Ethem Sancak, consists of Star newspaper and a couple of television channels. Tamince and Sancak are both known as close to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party.
Turkey is an important partner of Azerbaijan in the sphere of energy. The two countries are bound by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and South Caucasus gas pipeline. It is also planned to construct the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline for delivering the Azerbaijani gas to European market. The Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline will ensure the supply of gas to the border with Europe.
SOCAR is represented by a separate subdivision in Turkey and is a co-owner of the large Turkish petrochemical complex, Petkim. A new refinery will be constructed in order to provide the complex with raw materials. It is planned to construct a new power plant and to develop the container port near the complex.
After commissioning the Star refinery in 2017, SOCAR will become the largest company in Turkey's energy sphere.
SOCAR, the only producer of oil products in the country includes Azneft Production Association, which runs onshore and offshore oil producing companies, Azerkimya Production Association, and Azerigas Production Association.
Furthermore, the State Oil Company has a number of processing enterprises, service enterprises, institutions involved in geophysical and drilling operations.
The company owns gas stations in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Romania and Switzerland.