Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan.19 / Trend E. Ismailov /
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) has commissioned five gas stations under its own brand in Ukraine, SOCAR's representative office in Ukraine said today. The official opening ceremony of the gas stations was attended by SOCAR head Rovnag Abdullayev and the company's representatives.
As the representative office said, all five stations are located along the highway Odessa-Nikolaev-Yuzhnoukrainsk.
"The official opening ceremony took place at the gas station in Sebino," the source said.
SOCAR plans to open 30 gas stations in Ukraine by late 2011, Elchin Mammadov, the head of the company in Ukraine, said earlier. He said that a network of gas stations is created by buying the existing ones or building new gas stations.
This project is only part of a larger program the company's activity in Ukraine, in particular, on large-scale retail sales of oil products on the country's market.
SOCAR has a network of over 60 gas stations in Georgia and began to create a network of gas stations in Azerbaijan. Also the company has already announced intentions to enter the retail market of oil products of Romania, which means access to the EU market.