Astana, Kazakhstan, Dec. 25
By Daniar Mukhtarov - Trend:
Kazakhstan needs to build a new oil refinery, not to be dependent on the fluctuations of the world raw material prices, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev said Dec. 25.
He made the remarks during a nation-wide teleconference dedicated to the Day of Industrialization.
"Construction industry and deep oil and gas processing are the most important tasks in our program of becoming one of the top 30 economically strong states," Nazarbayev said after the launch of precommissioning work on the project for construction of a deep oil processing complex at the Atyrau Oil Refinery.
"Amid the decreasing world oil and gas prices, the processing is the way out from this situation," he said. "We need to build a new oil refinery to produce more finished products."
Atyrau Oil Refinery was commissioned on Sept. 8, 1945. The plant first product was gasoline. The initial capacity of the plant stood at 800,000 metric tons per year.
The Complex for Production of Aromatic Hydrocarbons was built as part of the State Program of Accelerated Industrial and Innovative Development of Kazakhstan for 2010-2014.
The complex' project provides for creation of two key technology facilities: a catalytic reforming installation with continuous catalyst regeneration and benzene recovering unit, and an aromatic hydrocarbon production installation.
Benzene and paraxylene are demanded oil processing products, which in turn are used as raw materials for manufacturing a wide range of petrochemical products.
The Atyrau Oil Refinery's Director General Kairat Urazbayev reported to the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on the start of precommissioning work at the Complex for Production of Aromatic Hydrocarbons.
"We are moving to the start testing of installations. This is our contribution to provision of the country with oil products that comply with the requirements of K-3 environmental grade. With the realization of this project, the harmful impact to the environment will reduce through the use of gasoline with low benzene content," Urazbayev said.
Some 99.5 percent of shares in the Atyrau Oil Refinery are owned by the KazMunaiGas - Processing and Marketing, a subsidiary of the Kazakhstan-based oil and gas company, KazMunaiGas.
Currently, Kazakhstan has three oil refineries in the cities of Shymkent, Pavlodar and Atyrau.
Edited by SI