Azerbaijan, Baku, July 27 / Trend N. Ismayilova /
The Azerbaijani-Russian plant which extracts and processes bentonitic clay, AzRosPromInvest, has signed a contract with Azeri M.I. Drilling to supply 3,000 tons of bentonitic clay to the local market by late 2009, Chairman of the joint venture directors' board Natiq Shirinzadeh said on July 27. The extraction is being carried out at Dash Salakhli field in the region of Gazakh.
"1,000 tons of the total volume outlined in the contract has already been supplied," Shirinzadeh said.
He said that the bentonitic powder will be delivered for use in production at SOCAR's Baku weighing materials plant. It is the first batch of bentonitic powder produced at the joint venture and sold at the local market. Before, production was exported to Russia and CIS countries.
"It will be impossible to increase the volume of the joint venture's production supplied on the local market in the future as in Azerbaijan the volume of usage is low," Shirinzadeh said.
The plant for the extraction and processing of bentonitic clay from Dash Salakhli field in Gazakh region was fully constructed and launched its activity in early 2009, triggering profits for the first six months of 2009.
The plant has a capacity of 250,000 tons of mechano-activated bentonitic clay per year, 100,000 of which is the processing of bentonitic powder. The territory of the joint venture consists of 345 hectares, from which there are 180 hectrares of deposits. The terms of the contract on the joint project have been reconsidered and prolonged to 50 years, from 25.
Dash Salakhli field's reserves come to 83 million tons.
Azeri M.I. Drilling has been SOCAR (51 percent) and Azeri M.I. Drilling Fluids Company Ltd's (49 percent) joint venture since 1996. The company operates in processing in the chemical industry, preparing and producing. The term of the contract is 15 years.
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