Azerbaijan to reduce oil refining by 2.2 pct in 2015

Azeri state energy company SOCAR plans to cut the amount of oil it refines by 2.2 percent to 6.55 million tonnes of crude in 2015 from 6.7 million planned for this year due to maintenance on one of its refineries, a source at the company said.

"SOCAR will reduce volumes of oil processing by 150,000 tonnes in 2015 due to a planned maintenance on one of the oil refineries," a source, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.

SOCAR operates two ageing refineries - the Baku Oil Refinery and the Oil Refinery Azneftyag, both in the capital Baku - that process more than 6 million tonnes of crude per year.

The company plans to build a major complex processing oil, gas and petrochemicals worth up to $14.4 billion near Baku, scheduled for completion in 2023.

Construction is due to start in 2015 and the complex will include a gas-processing plant, an oil refinery, as well as a petrochemicals plant.

That will boost refinery capacity to 8.5-9.0 million tonnes per year.

(Reuters)

Bakudaily.Az