Baku, Fineko/abc.az. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) is preparing to realize a quality breakthrough in manufacture of petroleum products, and first of all, light oil products.

At today’s media conference in Interfax-Azerbaijan news agency SOCAR vice president for environment Mukhtar Babayev said that current fuel produced by their refineries conforms to euro-2 standard.

“We, however, decided to give up from euro-3 standard production at our refineries. It would demand from us billions of investments in the enterprises to be closed in any case in the next few years. That is why we suppose to jump over several stages at once and construct new refineries for manufacture of fuel on euro-5 standard,” Babayev said.

The relevant state commission is preparing now proposals for domestic oil refining development, petrochemical and gas-chemical complex.

“It is making the suggestions with coordination role of the Cabinet Ministers. Already today it is apparent that both our refineries will be withdrawn from Baku for a short period and re-built to ensure their maximum efficiency,” Babayev said.

SOCAR has two Baku refineries with overall capacity of up to 22 million tons of oil a year. Indeed refining volumes at them do not exceed 9 million tons.

26.01.2010 14:18