Baku, Azerbaijan, June 22
By Matanat Nasibova – Trend:
The biggest cement producer in the South Caucasus - Azerbaijani Norm Sement plant - eyes to begin production of oil-well cement till the end of 2019, domestic market manager of the company Ilyas Gurbanov told Trend on June 22.
“Oil-well cement is a product obtained by grinding cement clinker, gypsum and additives, which is used for cementing oil and gas wells,” he said.
“At the beginning, the production volumes of this plant will be small,” Gurbanov added. “Taking into account that the annual demand for oil-well cement is about 20,000 tons in the country, the plant can easily produce these volumes.”
He went on to say, “In case of growing demand in the market, we plan to increase the production volumes. The future plans of the plant also include the export of new products abroad. We consider the Central Asian countries, in particular Kazakhstan, as a potential sales market. We also intend to export oil-well cement to the Arab countries.”
Gurbanov stressed that today, one of the most popular types of oil-well cement is Class G cement of API standard. “The main thing during setting time of cement is temperature, so two types of oil-well cement are produced, namely for hot and cold wells,” he said.
“There are also special types of oil-well cement for using in difficult conditions in deep wells, at high pressure and temperature, strong salt solutions, which cause erosion of the cement stone. This is whitish-silica, salt-resistant, weighted, lightened, fibrous and other types of oil-well cement,” he added.
“Presently, the Azerbaijani cement market consumes over three million tons per year,” Gurbanov noted.
Norm Sement plant produces two million tons of cement per year and five million tons of clinker per day. Currently, the plant produces five types of Class grade cement.