Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR intends to implement the project on reconstruction of a catalytic cracking unit at Baku Oil Refinery named after Heydar Aliyev in 2017, a source in the company told Trend Agency.
Earlier it was planned to start the modernization work in 2014 and to complete it in 2015.
For the first time, Azerbaijan is addressing this problem that consumption of gasoline in the country is equal to the volumes of its production. This is explained by the growing number of cars in the country. In turn, the modernization and reconstruction work of large plants at refinery named after Heydar Aliyev is needed to increase the quantitative and qualitative indicators of gasoline.
“Once we started importing Premium and Super gasoline, production capacity of AI-92 gasoline was high enough, therefore pressure for the reconstruction has eased. Now we have an additional year and half in stock,” the source said.
AI-92 gasoline makes up 90 percent of total consumption in the country, the source said.
Modernization of the unit will enable it to increase its processing capacity by one million tons, and gasoline production by 450,000 tons.
The suspension of A-95 gasoline production in Azerbaijan, the change of policy to transit the gasoline, as well as liberating the prices of this brand of gasoline associated with non-compliance of opportunities of the SOCAR processing have decreased the country’s need for high octane gasoline, which in a short period increased several times.
