Baku, Azerbaijan, May 11
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
Demolition of Azneftyag oil refinery will start following the commissioning of a new bitumen unit at the Baku Oil Refinery named after Heydar Aliyev in the summer of 2018, Vice-President of Strategic Development in the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Tofig Gahramanov told reporters May 11.
"Two small units for primary processing of oil and a bitumen unit with capacity of 250,000 tons per year currently operate at the refinery," Gahramanov said. "Given the need for bitumen in the country, the process of demolition of the plant has been postponed until the summer of 2018, when a new bitumen plant with capacity of 400,000 tons per year will be commissioned at the Baku Oil Refinery," said Gahramanov.
SOCAR announced the liquidation of Azneftyag oil refinery and its merger with the Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery in January of 2015. This decision was made as part of the work to improve and optimize SOCAR's structure.
A number of facilities will be constructed by July of 2019 in order to ensure the production of diesel fuel meeting Euro 5 standard and several facilities will be built by May of 2020 for producing gasoline meeting Euro 5 standard, according to the SOCAR OGPC representative.
The project will enable Azerbaijan to meet the domestic demands for motor gasoline in the next 15-20 years.
After the completion of the reconstruction, the processing capacity of the refinery will increase from 6 million to 7.5 million tons of oil per year.
Azerbaijan produced 5.45 million tons of oil products in 2015, compared to 5.31 million tons in 2014.
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