Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

Azerbaijan’s state company SOCAR signed a contract with AZFEN for the construction of a new bitumen plant at the Heydar Aliyev Baku Refinery, SOCAR reported on April 17.

SOCAR Vice President for Strategic Development Tofig Gahramanov, Vice President for Processing Davud Mammadov, Director of Refinery Elman Ismayilov, as well as AZFEN General Director Hamid Hasanov took part in the signing ceremony.

Gahramanov noted that the new bitumen production facility, the foundation of which was laid in September 2016, is being built as part of the modernization and reconstruction of the Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery.

"AZFEN Company won the tender, which was held to determine the local contractor for the construction and installation of the plant," Gahramanov said.

Hasanov, in turn, expressed confidence that the construction works at the plant will be conducted according to international standards and will be completed on time.

A new bitumen production facility to be built at the Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery would have an annual production capacity of 400,000 tons. EN 40/60 brand road bitumen will be produced here. The licensed installer is the Austrian engineering company Pörner.

Commissioning of the plant is scheduled for the second half of 2018. By the construction of a new bitumen production facility, the current infrastructure of former Azerneftyag oil refinery will be fully decommissioned and the coastal areas will be emptied and handed over for the realization of White City project. Furthermore running costs of Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery will be optimized and the country will be provided with high-quality bitumen.

The company plans to produce high-quality oil products as part of the next stage of the reconstruction work to be carried out at the Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery. Under the program, the oil refinery will produce Euro-5 standard diesel in 2019 and the Euro 5 standard petrol in 2020. By realization of the project the processing capacity of the refinery will be increased to 7.5 million tons.

This will help to fully meet the country's domestic consumption of car fuel for the next 15-20 years and increase the export potential of high-quality oil products. The implementation of the project will contribute to the improvement of the environmental situation in Baku and to the country's socio-economic development.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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