Petkim to make additional $ 100 mln from STAR refinery

Baku. 5 March. REPORT.AZ/ The launching of the STAR refinery in Aliaga (Izmir, Turkey) will bring an additional profit of $ 100 million per year to Petkim Holding petrochemical complex, mainly owned by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR). 

Report informs citing the Turkish media, Director General of Petkim Holding, Anar Mammadov told reporters.

Mammadov said that Petkim and STAR will work together as an integrated enterprise to increase productivity in production: "Petkim and STAR will work together as an integrated enterprise and our expectation is that Petkim will receive an additional $ 100 million annually."

According to him, $ 60 million of this amount will be linked to logistics.

"At present, we purchase naphtha from many countries. After the launching of STAR refinery, we will receive naphtha directly from the plant via the pipeline. That is, at the expense of logistics, the profit will be $ 60 mln dollars a year", he said. 

The remaining $ 40 mln will be received through joint services and a common infrastructure: "We have a very developed infrastructure on the Petkim Peninsula, which will be used in conjunction with STAR. Without the Petkim infrastructure, investment of STAR would be very different", he added.

Mammadov noted that now most of the raw materials used in Petkim are bought in the market. After the launching of STAR plant in the third quarter of this year, it will provide 100% of demand for raw materials.

Petkim has two major ethylene and aromatics plants. Both enterprises consume naphtha. New product will be manufactured after the launching of STAR refinery. This product will be more productive than the heavy naphtha currently used in the aromatics factory”, Director General stated.

Mammadov stressed that the annual growth rate of the global petrochemical sector is 3-4%, in Turkey this figure reaches 6-7%: "Turkey's demand for petroleum products is five times higher than the production of Petkim. That is, the company meets only 20% of Turkey's needs for petroleum products”, Mammadov said.

Director General added that the Turkish petrochemical complex has been very successful over the past three years: "Petkim's profit in 2017 has reached record levels. Net profit increased more than two times. Record-breaking indicators have been achieved. The complex's production capacity makes 3.6 million tons. The volume of production is 3.42 million tons, that is almost 97% of  total production capacity. For comparison: petrochemical enterprises in Europe use an average of 82% of their capacity", Petkim Director General emphasized.