TILL END OF JULY METHANOL PRODUCTION PLANT NEAR BAKU TO START MANUFACTURE OF FIRST PRODUCTS

This summer Azerbaijan Methanol Company (AzMeCo) will put into operation the plant for manufacture of 730,000 tons of methanol a year, said Muhtar Babayev, General Director of Azerkhimiya company, structure of SOCAR, at the conference “Russian and CIS Petrochemistry 2013” organized by Global Business Club company.

“Construction of the methanol production plant is completed and it will be launched soon. I think that the plant with the capacity of 730,000 tons will start to work within a month,” he said.

AzMeCo company was founded in Baku in 2007. Nizami Piriyev, chairman of Board of AzMeCo, told journalists that cost of the project is $360 million. He said the need in methanol in Azerbaijan is insignificant now, so 90% of products will be exported. As petrochemistry grows in the future, demand in methanol inside the country will grow.

The off take agreement to sell Azerbaijani methanol was signed in London on November 26, 2012. BP has obtained the status of the off taker of all products of the company.

The Baku-based methanol plant was built on the basis of British ICI technology, owner of which is Johnson Matthey. The plant will be fully automated. The plant will work in the auto pilot mode using IT technologies of the US Honeywell company. The plant will be managed by 24 operators in 3 shifts. 80-100 people will be hired to work at the plant.

At present AzMeCo has been negotiating with the Sumgait technological park to build the plant to manufacture the products, the raw resources for which will be methanol.

Methanol is the raw material for the chemical products. Methanol is a technical spirit, which decomposes on the soil and evaporates without causing harm to environment.Methanol is a liquid fuel, which is actively used in production of accumulators. The oil refineries use methanol to make special ether, which is an additive for increase in the gasoline octane content. Methanol is also used to make dymethylether, which is substitute of diesel fuel. Dymethilether is good for use in urban transport not to harm the urban ecology.—0—