BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 18. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) will examine the current state of the Congolaise de Raffinage (CORAF) oil refinery in the Republic of Congo and help modernize this enterprise, which has been operating for more than 40 years, an informed source told Trend.
Meanwhile, the National Petroleum Corporation of the Republic of Congo (SNPC, or Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo), which owns the CORAF refinery, and SOCAR signed an Agreement on Conditions for the Improvement and Expansion of the Congolaise de Raffinage Refinery in Baku on April 4.
"The capacity of the refinery is 27,000 barrels of oil per day; actually, now it is about 20,000 barrels per day (less than 1 million tons per year). The refinery needs reconstruction; SOCAR specialists will study the current state of the enterprise and then determine, with SNPC assistance, how to modernize the units of this refinery," the source noted.
More than half of the petroleum products produced at this refinery are used to cover the domestic needs of the Republic of Congo.
To note, the CORAF refinery, located in Pointe Noire, near the Atlantic Ocean, has been in operation since December 1982 and is the only refinery in the Republic of Congo, which has been a member of OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) since 2018.
The reserves of this African republic are estimated at 1.8 billion barrels of oil.
SOCAR Trading has been selling crude oil and parts of oil products from CORAF on the global market since 2023.
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