SOCAR managed to reduce cost of project of gas chemical complex

The initial cost of the new gas chemical complex of SOCAR ($7 billion) has dropped and currently it is estimated at $4 billion, Suleyman Gasymov, SOCAR Vice President for Economy, told journalists.

He said that several factors have affected reduction of the project cost. “We have decided to change parameters of the project a little to reduce the project costs and reduce capacity of the future gas chemical complex from 12 to 10 bcm of gas a year. The volume significantly affects the project cost,” explained SOCAR Vice President.

He reminded that SOCAR planned to involve the company’s partners from Japan to construction of the gas refining and gas chemical plants. However, the talks were not successful: as a risk they envisaged lower prices for the products in mid-term. Because of the significant required project costs, its implementation was not considered attractive by the Japanese companies.

Vice President added that in June 2016 SOCAR signed the memorandums with the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Russian Gasprombank and EXCAR Export Credit Agency and Italian Export Credit Agency SACE to build the gas chemical complex.

“We currently evaluate the proposals submitted by CNPC and our Russian and Italian partners to choose the most acceptable one. If the oil price goes up, Japanese companies could come back to the issue of the project implementation,” Gasymov added.—0—