Baku, Azerbaijan, June 3
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) will construct a new bitumen unit for Baku Oil Refinery named after Heydar Aliyev, SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev told reporters June 3.
He said SOCAR has expanded the potential of the oil bitumen unit with the capacity of 250,000 metric tons.
"In connection with the work on merging two Baku refineries, we are modernizing the plant," said Abdullayev. "It is planned to construct another bitumen unit with the capacity of 400,000 metric tons per year which will allow to cover the increasing bitumen consumption."
The company head said that following the liquidation of Azneftyag plant, several primary refining units of this enterprise will be put up for sale.
Abdullayev added that the reconstruction and modernization of the refinery will be carried out in 2015-2018.
"At the first stage, it is planned to construct the new bitumen unit, a unit for production of diesel fuel with the capacity of 3 million metric tons per year, as well as a catalytic cracking unit," said SOCAR's president.
After the completion of the reconstruction, the processing capacity of the refinery will increase from 6 million to 7.5 million metric tons of oil per year.
The modernization cost is estimated at $1 billion.
SOCAR announced about liquidation of Azneftyag oil refinery on January 1, 2015 and its merger with Baku Oil Refinery named after Heydar Aliyev as part of work on improving and optimization of SOCAR's structure.
In total, over 5.31 million metric tons of petroleum products were produced in Azerbaijan in 2014, compared to 5.09 million metric tons in 2013.
Edited by SI
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