Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Azerbaijan's polypropylene plant will be commissioned in the third-fourth quarter of 2016, Head of the Azerkimya Production Association of Azerbaijan's state energy company SOCAR Mukhtar Babayev told Trend Agency.

The plant will be constructed in Sumgayit Chemical Technology Park, and SOCAR Polimer takes part in the construction project.

Touching on the construction of the plant for the production of low pressure polyethylene, Babayev said this facility will be commissioned after launching the polypropylene plant.

"Technical works on the establishment of these facilities have already started. Part of the equipment has already been delivered, and currently, their inspection and testing is underway, large part of equipment was ordered, and logistical issues are being resolved. Earthworks have already been started," Babayev added.

The SOCAR Polimer enterprise with authorized capital of $51 million has been established for the implementation of these projects. The state energy company plans to keep its share in the project at 51 percent and the rest will be offered to privately owned companies.

Babayev went on to add that the construction of a carbamide plant will be completed in Azerbaijan in late 2016-early 2017.

He noted the construction works will be completed in the fourth quarter of 2016, and the rest will take commissioning and personnel training.

Touching on SOCAR's plans to construct a similar plant in neighboring Georgia, Babayev said currently, this project is under development.

Earlier it was reported that the facility in Georgia will be similar to the facility to be constructed in Azerbaijan for its parameters.

However, Babaev said, some adjustments were made to this project, and currently, related works are underway over it.

Babaev said if it was previously assumed that all the ammonia will be processed into carbamide at this plant, now other options are being considered as well, in particular selling ammonia as a product.

The general contractor of the project is South Korea's Samsung Engineering Co., Ltd.

Approximately 40-45 percent of the plant's products are expected to be sold in the domestic market, which will fully meet the demand for nitrogen fertilizers in the country. The rest of the 400,000 tons per year volume will be exported.

The new plant will be located in Azerkimya production association's industrial site in Sumgayit. The designed annual capacity of the plant will be about 600,000 tons of carbamide (2,000 tons per day) and 1,200 tons of ammonia per day.

Around 500 million euros (excluding taxes) will be allocated from the state budget to build the plant.

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.