Azernews.Az

By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) has played an important role in the global energy system during the last decades as many countries began using this type of gas.

SOCAR Trading, which is the trading house of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, has raised the trade in LNG more than four times, the company said in a message.

Headquartered in Geneva, SOCAR Trading was incorporated in December 2007 as the marketing arm of SOCAR with a mandate to market Azerbaijani barrels produced from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field and other surrounding fields in Azerbaijan.

While the company continues to market the bulk of SOCAR crude oil export volumes from Ceyhan port in Turkey, it has also been able to develop significant third party volumes through both leveraging its system barrels, as well as its experienced traders developing new business.

SOCAR Trading is active in oil products trading with its dedicated desks for light, middle, and heavy distillates trading over 10 million metric tons in 2017. The light distillates desk trades gasoline, naphtha, LPG and condensates, while middle distillates desk trades gasoil and ultra-low-sulfur-diesel (ULSD), and the heavy distillates desk trades fuel oil.

As for the operations in Switzerland in 2018, the revenues of SOCAR amounted to 94.5 billion manats ($55.6 billion) in 2018, which is 20.2 percent more than in 2017. According to the company's consolidated financial report for 2018, 84.9 percent of the SOCAR’s total revenue last year accounted for revenues from operations in Switzerland. In the country, SOCAR operates in the retail trade of petroleum products, running a network of petrol stations under the SOCAR brand.

Generally, SOCAR is one of the world's 50 largest oil companies. Its mission is to ensure the energy security of Azerbaijan. Established in 1992, SOCAR aimed at manage Azerbaijan's oil resources on the basis of a single state policy, to improve the management structure of the oil industry and to ensure the development of fuel and energy complex.

Currently, SOCAR is the only producer of oil products in the country, and also operates more than 370 filling stations in Switzerland, Georgia, Romania and Ukraine.

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Mirsaid Ibrahimzade is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @MirsaidIbrahim1

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