Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept.23 / Trend, N. Ismayilova /
Azerbaijan will launch methanol production in the second quarter of 2012, AzMeCo board chairman Nizami Piriyev told Trend.
"The completion of construction work at the plant is scheduled for late 2011, then start-up work will begin, which will take three to five months. I think that methanol production will have already begun in April and the plant will gain the capacity of 560,000 tons a year in June-July 2012," Piriyev said.
He said the company also began designing the installation, which will catch carbon dioxide emissions into atmosphere. This gas can also serve as raw material for methanol production. Due to this volume of methanol, production in the country will increase to 720,000 tons per year by late 2012.
The total cost of the methanol plant project construction is expected to reach $360 million and the project financing has been completed.
This methanol plant will be the only one in Transcaucasia and Central Asia.
AzMeCo was founded in November 2007. In addition to its portfolio of international hydrocarbon projects in the Caspian Sea basin, the company has developed a master plan for investment in the Azerbaijani non-oil sector.