Azerbaijan, Baku, May 23 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) is expected to submit to the government a project on building a new refinery and petrochemical complex in the Garadag district, SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said on Monday.
The complex will include oil and gas refining and petrochemical product production companies.
He said work is underway to prepare a feasibility study and respective calculations.
"The draft will be submitted to the government and the country's leadership in the near future, after which work on this project will commence," Abdullayev said.
The new petrochemical complex requires deep hydrocarbon resource processing, in particular, natural and associated gas and oil refining to obtain oil products, automotive fuels and lubricants.
The complex also includes the construction of its own electric power station.
According to preliminary data, the volume of gas processing in the complex will amount to 40 billion cubic meters a year.
It is assumed that the entire complex will work at full capacity in 2018-2019. Construction of gas processing and petrochemical enterprises will be launched.
A thermal power center will be built to meet the internal needs of the complex.
Moreover, SOCAR plans to address the issue of financing the project and define contractors for the construction of a refinery in Turkey, Abdullayev said.
All design work has been completed and construction work will be launched after the decision on funding and awarding of contracts.
The construction with a capacity of 10 million tons per year is expected to be completed in 2014.
Roughly 8,000 workers will be involved in the construction. Following its commissioning, the refinery will employ about 650 people.