Azerbaijan, Baku / corr Trend V.Sharifov / The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) main export pipeline is an economically reasonable route for Kazakh oil deliveries for re-production at the oil refinery plants in the Turkish port of Ceyhan, the senior official of the Kazakhstan's oil refinery said.
The Government of Turkey has received 3 applications for the construction of a new Oil Refinery Plant (ORP) in the area of Ceyhan port. There are three groups of companies wishing to build ORPs. The first group unites Calik Enerji of Turkey, KazMunayGas of Kazakhstan and Oil India of India. The second group includes Turkish company TURCAS and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR). The third group unites the Turkish company Petroil offici and the Austrian company OMV. The construction of the ORP is scheduled to be completed by 2012. It is planned to produce a large specter of oil products: all types of high quality petrol, mazut, diesel fuel, aviation kerosene and petro-chemical products.
"It is essential for Kazakhstan to refine its oil at ORPs," the same source added.
Kazakhstan at present delivers 7mln tons of oil by tankers via the ports of Aktau and Baku. Following the exploitation of the Kurik port, oil export may be increased to 15-20mln tons of oil a year. Kazakhstan will deliver via BTC its oil from the Kashagan field, the participants of which possess a 15%share in the BTC pipeline company. The capacity of the BTC pipeline is 50mln tons.
There is every reason to increase the project capacity of the plant which is Turkey's quickly growing demand for oil products, profitable location of the port, exit to world markets, as well as crude oil in large volumes. Oil will be delivered via the BTC pipeline, as well as two pipelines to run from Iran-Kirkuk-Ceyhan with the capacity of 70mln tons of oil and the Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline with a capacity of 50mln tons.
In addition to the construction of the oil refinery itself, the project envisages erecting all port infrastructures. Increasing the capacity will lead to a rise in the project cost, but the cost has not yet been disclosed. Earlier, the variant of the project in 15mln tons per year was estimated at $5bln.
Turkey is presently experiencing a shortage of oil refining facilities. According to various data, cited by the source, today, Turkey's needs in oil reaches 32mln tons per year.
The 5 oil refineries presently operational in Turkey may produce up to 26.5mln tons of oil product, and the country has to rely on importing the rest of the 6-7mln tons of oil products, buying oil refined products from Russian or Italian companies. According to predictions, by 2010, Turkey's oil dependency will increase to 34mln tons and up to 43mln tons by 2012.