Azerbaijan to Launch Large-scale Energy Projects in 2018

Baku / 11.01.17 / Turan: Despite the drop in oil production in 2017 within the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli project, the profit of the Azerbaijani state exceeded $ 1.2 billion. This was in the interview of the program Chetin Sual (Difficult Question) of the Turan news agency with the head of the Caspian Oil Research Center Ilham Shaban.

According to him, the decline in oil production occurred in the winter months, but this was accompanied by a greater transfer of associated gas to the Azerbaijani side.

Revenues from gas compensated and even brought in revenues from a drop in oil production.

Shaban noted that in 2018 it is planned to commission a number of facilities, implemented both in Azerbaijan and abroad.

These are mostly gas projects. Thus, the first stage of the Southern Gas Corridor will be commissioned.

In particular, in mid-2018 facilities will be launched at the Shahdeniz-2 field.

Further, the expansion of the South Caucasus gas pipeline will be completed and finally TANAP (Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline) will be launched.

In addition, in 2018 one of the major investment projects of Azerbaijan in Turkey, the Star oil refinery, will be launched.

Inside the country large-scale projects will also be commissioned. In particular, it is planned to open a plant SOCAR-Carbamide in Sumgait.

Two more enterprises will be commissioned within the framework of the SOCAR-Polymer project.

These projects will work at full capacity in 2019. They will allow the state oil company to receive additional revenues outside its traditional business.

The revenues of Azerbaijan from the transit of energy resources will also increase.

Since 2010, the transit of the oil produced on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea (in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) has begun via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

Over 11 months of 2017, over 5 million tons of oil was pumped through BTC. These volumes will grow, as production will decrease in Azerbaijan, but grow in Kazakhstan until 2035. In the long term, there are opportunities for transit of gas through Azerbaijan.

The agenda also includes transit of electricity through Azerbaijan. In particular, it is planned to transit electricity from Russia to the northern provinces of Iran.

In addition, the petrochemical industry is also developing. Until the middle of the next decade, this industry will bring $ 1 billion a year, although earlier revenues from the petrochemical industry amounted to $ 70-100 million.

This industry is not only export-oriented, but also attractive for the domestic market.

The petrochemical park created in Azerbaijan is a very profitable industrial and investment project. It will have numerous effects for the Azerbaijani market. -06D--