AZERBAIJAN - Refining & Petrochemicals.

Azerbaijan has a diversified downstream sector. It includes two refineries with a total capacity of 442,000 b/d and 25 petrochemical plants, all built during the Soviet era. Both refineries are located in Baku. One is the Baku refinery, with a capacity of 230,000 b/d. The second is the Novo-Baku plant, with a capacity of 212,000 b/d. The latter has a catalytic cracker with a capacity of 34,400 b/d. The refineries process a mix of Azeri, Russian and Kazakh crude oils; but they are now operating at about 40% of their capacity. Exports of diesel and jet fuel go to Iran. Baku exports fuel oil and gasoil to Mediterranean markets through the Black Sea.

The petrochemical sector is concentrated in the area around Sumgait, close to Baku. There are also plants in the capital, and in Neftechala south of Baku. All the plants are based on Soviet technology, apart from a polyethylene unit. This sector depends heavily on feedstock imported from elsewhere in the FSU. The functioning of plants was badly affected during the early 1990s when most countries of Central Asia were going through a tough political and economic transition. One project that was launched during the Gorbachev era in the 1980s, a polypropylene plant for which the contract was awarded to Tecnimont of Italy, was stalled for years because of financing difficulties.

The plants are owned by AzeriChimia. They include a 300,000 t/y ethylene complex. This complex has producing polyethylene, synthetic rubbers, latex, propylene glycol, pyrolysis benzene and fractions of butene, butylene and isobutylene. There is also an old and heavily-polluted chlorine complex based on mercury cells. Epichlorhydrin is produced at this site as well.