Sole oil refinery in Baku halts for around 50-day repairs

A long-scheduled stop at the Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery, the only one in Azerbaijan, is scheduled for March and may take over 45 days, Report informs, citing sources in the company.

Under the information, in parallel with it, the facilities of Azerkimya (Chemistry) JSC, which receive raw materials from the refinery and are part of the structure of SOCAR, will suspend operations.

“The refinery will undergo overhaul from March 21 for a period of 50 days. The shutdown is scheduled for inspection of the plant's main facilities, upgrade and repair them,” the SOCAR insider said.

The refinery produces about 1-1.2 million tons of motor gasoline (at the end of 2021 it was 1.26 million tons, an increase of 7.9%), naphtha (in 2021 – 400,700 tons, an increase of 67.2 %, in demand at the enterprises of Azerkimya), diesel fuel (in 2021 - 2.4 million tons, an increase of 16.2%), fuel oil (105,000 tons in 2021 with an increase of 70.5%), lubricating oils (49,100 tons in 2021 with an increase of 39.1%), petroleum coke (255,300 tons, an increase of 29.7% by 2020), petroleum bitumen (in 2021 there was a decline by 3.4% to 362,200 tons) and jet fuel (in 2021 there was a decline of 2.4% to 490,100 tons).

Due to the spring repair of the refinery in 2022, the government instructed SOCAR to sign contracts with companies from the Russian Federation, Romania, Turkmenistan for a total of 150,000 tons of petrol in order to prevent a shortage of AI-92 gasoline in the domestic market.

To this end, the Azerbaijani Cabinet of Ministers has temporarily (for the period February 1-June 1, 2022) zeroed the customs duty rates for gasoline imported into the country with an octane number of 92 and up to 95 (not inclusive).

Earlier, customs duties on the import of AI-92 motor gasoline to Azerbaijan were 15%.

Also, by a government decision, from February 1 to June 1, excise duty rates on gasoline imported into the country with a lead content of not more than 0.013 grams per liter and an octane number from 92 to 95, but not inclusive, were reduced from 200 manats to 1 manat per ton.