State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) has temporarily suspended production of motor fuel, a source from SOCAR told Caspian Barrel.
The reason is that yesterday SOCAR started major repair of the big installations at the Heydar Aliyev oil refinery, which manufacture fuel. It is planned to repair the primary oil refining installation (the installation is very important for the petrol production), installation of the catalytic reforming and the catalytic cracking installation.
Early this year SOCAR administration announced the forthcoming repair works at the Heydar Aliyev oil refinery. The repair works will take about three months. During this period the local market will be supplied with the imported oil products. In February 2014 the government made a decision to reduce excises of petrol types Ai-92 and Ai-80 as twice, diesel fuel – by 3.2 times, jet engine fuel – by 7.6 times, naphtha – by 5.4 times, liquefied gas – by 3 times, motor fuel (DT-36) – by 7 times, motor fuel (DT-20) – by 5.2 times, black oil -by 49 times and bitumen (BN – 60/90 and BMB 60/70) – by 16.4 times to regulate the prices.
This is a temporary measure and as soon as the new installations are launched after the repair, the production will be resumed and the oil products import will be suspended.
