Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
A completely new unified ELOU AVT unit with a capacity of 7.5 million tons per year will be built at the Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery in Baku, Deputy Head of Public Relations Department at Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR Ibrahim Ahmadov told Trend.
“As for the planned relocation of the existing primary oil refining unit, this part of the project was reviewed, as earlier announced by SOCAR Vice-President Tofig Gahramanov. To make it clear, I would like to note that currently, we have ELOU AVT-6 on the territory of the Heydar Aliyev Refinery and ELOU AVT-2 on the territory of the former Azerneftyag. The production capacity of the first unit is up to 6 million tons per year and with the relocation of ELOU AVT-2 to the territory of Baku Refinery, the total refining capacity with both units would increase to 7.5 million tons per year, meanwhile freeing the territory for the White City project,” he said. “However, the transfer of that unit is a technically difficult and labor intensive process, due to which, a separate tender was held to relocate the existing ELOU AVT-2 unit to the territory of Baku Refinery. The results of this tender allowed to define more precisely the cost of the project for relocating the unit to the territory of the Baku Refinery and accordingly, to re-evaluate the project in terms of profitability,” Ahmadov explained.
At the same time, the company’s contractor Tecnicas Reunidas conducted additional tests, involving relevant specialized companies, to determine the residual life of the equipment of another existing unit, namely ELOU AVT-6, he said, adding that these tests showed the need to replace the vacuum columns and a number of other equipment.
“A comparative analysis of the cost of reconstruction of the existing ELOU AVT-6 unit and the relocation of ELOU AVT-2 was conducted based on the obtained new data. As a result of the analysis, the project management company (WOOD Group) recommended to suspend the reconstruction of the ELOU AVT-6 unit and revise the project of relocating the ELOU AVT-2 unit, and instead start work on the construction of a completely new single unit ELOU-AVT with a capacity of 7.5 million tons per year,” he said. “The new unit will replace the previous two and is the most cost-effective solution in this situation. This recommendation was discussed and approved at the meetings of the Headquarters for the Reconstruction and Modernization of the Heydar Aliyev Refinery and Azerikimya Production Union, with the participation of SOCAR management staff, a number of ministers and representatives of the Presidential Administration. Work on the project has already begun,” Ahmadov said.
Currently, Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery is undergoing modernization, which will be completed in 2021. Following the modernization, the refinery’s capacity will increase from 6 million tons per year to 8 million tons per year, while its operational term will be extended until 2040.
The cost of modernization of the Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery is estimated at around $2.2 billion.
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