BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb.2
By Fidan Babayeva – Trend:
Three treatment facilities will be built at the Heydar Aliyev Baku Refinery of the State Oil Company (SOCAR), Trend reports referring to SOCAR.
According to the company, as a result of the technical inspection, it was decided to start the construction of three new units - amino purification (desulfurization of liquefied gas), LPG Merox (primary purification of liquefied gas and purification from mercaptan), and gasoline hydrotreating (hydrotreating of gasoline fraction obtained from a catalytic cracking unit).
"The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 caused a slight delay in the implementation of projects, and the adoption of a new schedule was inevitable," the company said.
According to SOCAR, a total of 23 million man-hours of work have been completed so far. In order to speed up the work on the project, SOCAR Downstream Management company consisting of international specialists was created last year. Within the company-developed Operational Excellence program, young specialists will be sent to trainings at the STAR refinery in Turkey to exchange experience.
As a result of the latest check carried out by international companies at the main units of the refinery, it was recommended to replace several main units of the refinery built in the 1970-80s, including the primary oil refining units, with new ones. In this regard, SOCAR has started relevant preliminary research and design.
The Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery is one of the biggest oil refineries in the Transcaucasian region, located on the Absheron Peninsula. The productivity of the refinery is about 4-6 million tons per year with the prospect of increasing to 10 million tons per year.
Higher production volumes at the refinery can be achieved in 2025, when the refinery modernization project, which began in 2015, will be fully implemented.
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