SOCAR does not know date of beginning of construction of petrochemical complex

The date of beginning of construction of a new oil and gas refining and petrochemical complex of State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR OGPC) in Baku's Garadag region is unknown, SOCAR Vice President Suleiman Gasymov said.

He said at present the government commission continues work on the OGPC preparation. As soon as work on the project is over, the governmental commission will name the data of beginning of construction.

SOCAR has earlier planned to begin construction in 2013. In connection with this the budget of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) has allocated 211,950,000 AZN for this purpose in 2013. However, final decision has not been made. The governmental commission was created in April 2013 to work out the final proposals on the SOCAR OGPC.

The feasibility study of the project was worked out by Technip, Foster Wheeler and UOP companies. The cost of OGPC project before creation of the governmental commission totaled $14.2 billion of capital outlays or $17 billion considering bank credits. It seems like the government did not like such a high cost (almost all Caspian basin states have been building the petrochemical and oil and gas refining complexes, but the scale of Azerbaijani one and its cost has surpassed all of them).

It was earlier planned that the first part of the complex will be put into operation in 2017-2018, but operation of the entire complex is planned to begin in December 2020. Judging by all, it will be impossible to implement such a wide-scale project within this period.-0-