The 214,000 bbl/day refinery is being developed by SOCAR & Turcas Energy, a joint venture involving Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR and Turkish state firm Turcas Petrol, at Aliaga on the Aegean coast.
The two partners are also major shareholders in Turkish petrochemical firm Petkim Petrokimya. The new refinery will be built at Petkim's existing Aliaga petrochemical production complex. Petkim plans to double its petrochemicals capacity to 6.3m tonnes/year before 2018, and the refinery will be a key source of feedstocks for the planned expansion.
Construction work on the refinery is scheduled to start by the end of 2011 and the plant will be commissioned in 2015, SOCAR & Turcas Energy CEO Kenan Yavuz said in an interview with local media on Thursday.
Sources in Istanbul confirmed that the plant is scheduled for completion by 2015, but said that no major construction contracts are due to be awarded on the scheme this year. Local firms are currently bidding for a contract to prepare the Aliaga site for the plant, and the winner is likely to start work towards the end of the final quarter of 2011, said one senior engineering executive with knowledge of the project.
However, bidding for the main engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts to build the main plant is not due to begin until late this year, and contract awards are unlikely to be made before the second quarter of 2012, he added.
“Actual construction of the refinery won’t start until at least a year from now,” he said.
If construction starts in mid-2012, the plant will be commissioned in the second half of 2015 at the earliest, said another senior engineering executive with ties to the country.
US firm Foster Wheeler won the front-end engineering and design contract to design the refinery in June 2010, while another US company, Fluor, was appointed as project management consultant in December 2010.
Firms understood to be interested in the EPC deals include local company Tefken, Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas and Italian firms Snamprogetti and Saipem.
