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SOCAR,American UOP ink deal on reconstruction of refinery

3 November 2015 17:27 (UTC+04:00)
SOCAR,American UOP ink deal on reconstruction of refinery

By Aynur Karimova

Azerbaijan's state energy company SOCAR has signed an agreement with the U.S. UOP LLC (formerly known as Universal Oil Products) on licensing the construction of a number of units within the framework of modernization of the Baku Oil Refinery named after Heydar Aliyev, SOCAR reported on November 3.

Addressing the signing ceremony SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said that the project on reconstruction of this refinery is currently one of the most important projects for SOCAR in the downstream (refining) field.

"In this regard, as a result of researches conducted for the production of gasoline of high quality, the UOP Company with its advanced international experience, was chosen by SOCAR as a licensor of units within the structure of the refinery, including hydrotreating units of petroleum coke, catalytic cracking, isomerization, production of methyl-tert-butyl ether, sour oxidation of unsaturated liquefied gas and amine treatment and oxidation of sulfides," he noted.

SOCAR has already long been cooperating with the UOP Company. In particular, catalytic reforming unit of the Baku Oil Refinery was built under a license of UOP, and feasibility study of the projects of the gas processing and petrochemical complex and reconstruction of the refinery named after Heydar Aliyev were developed with the assistance of the U.S. company.

Furthermore, UOP has been selected a licensor of a number of units at the Star refinery in Turkey.

The agreement was signed by Telman Ismayilov, the director of the refinery named after Heydar Aliyev, and Pete Piotrowski, the senior vice president of the UOP Company.

Earlier, SOCAR signed agreements with the Austrian Poerner and French Axens companies within the framework of the modernization of the refinery.

Modernization of the Baku Oil Refinery named after Heydar Aliyev will be complete by the end of 2018. The refinery processing capacity will increase from 6 to 7.5 million tons per year after reconstruction. The cost of modernization is estimated at $1 billion.

SOCAR announced about the elimination of Azneftyag refinery and merging it with the Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery in January 2015.

This decision was taken as part of the work to improve and optimize SOCAR’s structure.
Azerbaijan produced over 5.31 million tons of oil in 2014 compared to 5.09 million tons of oil in 2013.

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Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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