Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.28
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
For the first time in Azerbaijan the volume of gasoline consumption equaled its production, the head of SOCAR, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, Rovnag Abdullayev said on Dec.28 at an event summing up the year of 2013.
The SOCAR's head said that this shows the growth of citizens' welfare and the number of cars.
In order to meet the growing volumes of gasoline consumption, next year it is planned to increase the capacity of the catalytic cracking unit at the Baku Oil Refinery named after Heydar Aliyev. Work on reconstruction and expansion of existing units will ensure the country's need of gasoline until the commissioning of a new oil and gas processing complex.
Establishment of the new complex will begin with construction of a gas processing plant in mid-2014. A phased commissioning of the new complex is expected to start in 2018.
In 2013 SOCAR in total processed 6.5 million tons of oil and 3.8 billion cubic meters of gas. The depth of processing for the year was 92 percent.
During the year the company also produced 290,000 tons of chemical raw materials.
Currently, two refineries owned by SOCAR operate in Azerbaijan.