Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
The SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) has signed a contract with the US UOP (formerly known as Universal Oil Products) LLC on licensing the construction of a number of units within the framework of modernization of the Baku Oil Refinery named after Heydar Aliyev, the message of the SOCAR company said Nov. 3.
The message said that the president of SOCAR Rovnag Abdullayev, speaking at the signing ceremony, said that the project of reconstruction of the refinery named after Heydar Aliyev is currently one of the most important projects for the SOCAR in the downstream (refining) sphere.
"In this regard, as a result of the research for the production of high quality gasoline, the UOP company, which has advanced international experience, has been chosen by the SOCAR as a licensor of units within the structure of the refinery," said Abdullayev.
"The structure of the refinery also includes units on hydrotreating of oil coke, catalytic cracking, isomerization, production of methyl tert-butyl ether, mercaptan oxydation of unsaturated liquefied natural gas, as well as amine treatment and oxydation of sulfides," he said.
It was also noted that SOCAR has had a long relationship with the UOP company. For example, catalytic reforming unit of the Baku Oil Refinery was built under the license of UOP, and feasibility studies of projects of the OGPC and reconstruction of the refinery named after Heydar Aliyev were prepared with the assistance of the US company. In addition, UOP has been selected as a licensor of a number of units at the Star refinery in Turkey.
The contract was signed by the director of the refinery named after Heydar Aliyev Elman Ismayilov and senior vice president of UOP Pete Piotrowski.
Earlier, SOCAR signed contracts with the Austrian Poerner and French Axens companies within the framework of modernization of the refinery named after Heydar Aliyev.
Modernization of the Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery will be complete by the end of 2018. The refinery processing capacity will increase from 6 to 7.5 million tons per year after reconstruction. The cost of modernization is estimated at $1 billion.
SOCAR announced about the elimination of Azneftyag refinery and merging it with the Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery in January 2015.
This decision was taken as part of the work to improve and optimize SOCAR's structure.
Azerbaijan produced over 5.31 million tons of oil in 2014 compared to 5.09 million tons of oil in 2013.