Azerbaijan, Baku / corr Trend S.Aliyev / The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) has launched the development of a preliminary project on the construction of an oil refinery plant in Ceyhan (Turkey), whereas the Turkish Ministry of Ecology is developing an environmental impact assessment of the ORP, Rovnag Abdullayev, the SOCAR President, 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.
Earlier, a senior SOCAR representative said that the SOCAR enterprise to be placed in Ceyhan will have two types of production, one allocated for the production of oil products and the other for the production of chemical products. "The enterprise is aimed at the Turkish market," an official of SOCAR said.
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.