SOCAR Methanol LLC plans to produce 250,000 tons of methanol in 2017, Elnur Mustafayev, General Director of the LLC, said in an interview with the domestic magazine Consulting and Business.
It should be noted that in January-May 2017, LLC SOCAR Methanol produced 70,252.57 tons of methanol.
“This year we plan to produce 250 thousand tons of methanol. This is 2 times more than for any of the previous years and this is just a “warm-up”. Proceeding from the stable growth of the world demand for our product, in the nearest future we plan to increase the production to 500 thousand tons per year, and increase productivity by 90%,” Mustafayev said.
According to him, the maximum productivity of the Azerbaijan methanol plant is 700 thousand tons per year.
He also said that in the near future the plant plans to start the production of perspective products of final demand under the SOCAR brand on the basis of methanol for sale in domestic and foreign markets.
“We are focused on deepening the processing of natural gas and on the transition from methanol production to the production, for example, of fuel additives, industrial and domestic solvents, paints, varnishes, resins and others. This is one of the strategic directions of our development as a business structure aimed at strengthening domestic and export potential,” Mustafayev said.
According to him, currently demand for methanol in the domestic market of Azerbaijan is only 5% of the total sales volume, and is formed at the expense of several companies producing paints, varnishes, special substances used in the drilling of oil and gas wells, and in the transportation of hydrocarbons.
“The domestic market is developing dynamically. In the foreseeable future, the volume of methanol sales in the domestic market will increase many fold. Our specific task is to double the sale in the local market from 2019, and I have no doubt that this bar will be overcome,” Mustafayev said.
The Azerbaijani methanol plant in the Garadagh district of Baku was built by AzMeCo in November 2013. At the end of 2015, the plant stopped production due to financial problems.
On November 4, the Ministry of Taxes registered SOCAR Methanol LLC with an authorized capital of 10,000 manat. SOCAR purchased the plant from CJSC Agrarcredit, which received the enterprise from the International Bank of Azerbaijan by decision of the court. AzMeCo could not return the multibillion-dollar IBA debt in time.
Previously, AzMeCo’s managers stated that with the maximum capacity of the plant, about 500-600 Mcm of natural gas is needed.
