SOCAR to open more filling stations in Romania
By Nigar Orujova
Azerbaijan's State Oil Company plans to increase the number of its filling stations in Romania, Head of SOCAR's Romanian office Hamza Karimov said in an interview with "Energynomics.ro".
"Romania is among the top ten countries in terms of global energy security, expectations for investment growth and positive economic results in 2013. It played a decisive role in the expansion of SOCAR activity on the local market," he said.
Karimov said that some 29 filling stations of the company are operate in eleven districts of Romania. The work is under way to reveal new places to increase the number of filling stations.
The customers use with high satisfaction the high-quality products and services offered at SOCAR filling stations. The conditions were created for observing the Azerbaijani culture, culinary traditions, and tourism.
Azerbaijan's energy giant SOCAR entered the Romanian market by buying local filling stations from Romtranspetrol and re-branding them in 2011. To become one of the most important players in fuel distribution in northeast Romania, SOCAR plans to bring the number of its gas stations in Romania to 100.
Since the beginning of 2014, SOCAR has opened nine new stations in Romania.
SOCAR - which is keen on expanding operations in the retail oil products market abroad - is involved in exploring oil and gas fields, producing, processing, and transporting oil, gas, and gas condensate, marketing petroleum and petrochemical products in the domestic and international markets, and supplying natural gas to industry and the public in Azerbaijan.
Currently, the company owns some gas stations in Azerbaijan, Switzerland, Georgia and Ukraine.
It has representative offices in Georgia, Turkey, Romania, Austria, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Britain, Iran, Germany and Ukraine, and trading companies in Switzerland, Singapore, Vietnam, Nigeria, and other countries.