SOCAR lets contract for grassroots gas, petchem complex

Jan. 5, 2017
State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) subsidiary SOCAR GPC has let a series of contracts to Technip SA, Paris, to deliver technology licensing and design work for a proposed grassroots gas processing and petrochemical complex to be built in Garadagh, Azerbaijan, 15 km south of Baku.

State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) subsidiary SOCAR GPC has let a series of contracts to Technip SA, Paris, to deliver technology licensing and design work for a proposed grassroots gas processing and petrochemical complex to be built in Garadagh, Azerbaijan, 15 km south of Baku.

In addition to licensing of its proprietary ethylene and Cryomax NGL-recovery process technologies for the new complex, Technip will deliver process and engineering design for all gas and petrochemical units to be installed at the complex, with the exception of a planned polyethylene unit, the service provider said.

Technip also will provide design of all related utilities and off-site installations for the complex.

Engineering design work on the project is scheduled to be completed during second-half 2017, Technip said.

Specific values of the contracts were not disclosed.

Project details

As proposed, the integrated gas processing and petrochemical complex at Garadagh will include the following units:

• A single-train gas processing plant with a processing capacity of 10-billion cu m/year.

• A steam cracker equipped to produce 610,000 tonnes/year of ethylene and 120,000 tpy of propylene, the latter of which will be delivered about 30 km north of Baku to SOCAR Polymer LLC’s operations at Sumgait for production of polypropylene.

• A swing polyethylene unit with a production capacity of 600,000 tpy.

• Other unidentified units.

Launched in late 2016 as part of SOCAR’s ongoing plan to maximize integration of Azerbaijan’s upstream-midstream-downstream oil and gas value chain, the new complex intends to help eliminate feedstock supply risks by processing natural and associated gases delivered from local production fields into purified gas for domestic end users, as well into feedstock for production of high-quality polymers for export destinations in Turkey, the European Union, China, and elsewhere, SOCAR GPC said.

The company said it will take final investment decision on the project in the next 15-18 months, or after it receives full results of development and design works currently under way.

If approved, the complex would take 48 months to build, with tentative startup of all units scheduled for some time in 2022, SOCAR GPC said.

Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].