Contract let for new refinery in Turkey

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, June 21 – SOCAR & TURCAS Refinery AS, Istanbul, has let a contract to a Foster Wheeler AG subsidiary for early work on a 214,000-b/sd grassroots refinery to be integrated with a petrochemical complex at Aliaga, Turkey.

The refinery will supply naphtha to the Petkim Petrochemical AS complex, which is on the Aegean Sea, and fuels for sale in Turkey.

In addition to crude and vacuum distillation units, the refinery will have naphtha hydrotreating facilities, a 40,000-b/sd delayed coker, a 66,000-b/sd hydrocracker, kerosine and diesel hydrotreaters, LPG caustic treatment units, a 28,000-b/sd continuous catalytic reformer, a saturated gas unit, an amine and sour-water stripper, sulfur and tail-gas treatment units, and a 160,000-normal-cu-m/hr hydrogen unit.

A unit of Foster Wheeler’s Global Engineering and Construction Group will handle front-end engineering design and provide the license and basic design package for the coker, which will use Foster Wheeler’s SYDEC technology.

SOCAR & TURCAS Refining, founded in 2008, is a subsidiary of SOCAR & TURCAS Energy, in which State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic holds a 51% interest, Turkas Petrol 25%, and Aksoy Holding 24%.

Main products of the Petkim complex are ethylene, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, and acrylonitrile. Some of its feedstock is light hydrocarbons from SOCAR’s 400,000-b/d refining complex at Baku, supplied by tanker loaded at Batumi, Georgia.