BAKU

Azerbaijan’s state energy firm SOCAR will delay its decision over the construction of a new petrochemical complex in Turkey until next year, to give it time to find another investor for the project after BP pulled out, Vagif Aliyev, SOCAR Turkey’s deputy chairman, said.

SOCAR and British oil major BP signed an agreement to carry out the project in 2018. The plant’s construction, originally planned to start the end of last year, was delayed after BP decided to withdraw from the petrochemical business globally, pulling out of the project. BP sold that part of its business to Spanish company INEOS.

“We are negotiating with INEOS and with other investors. We are definitely not in the mood for a long delay in the implementation of the Mercury project,” Aliyev said. “These investments will be made, and we can do it either with an experienced partner in the petrochemical field or with a financial partner.”

Aliyev said that SOCAR had decided to carry on with the Mercury project with the involvement of a financial partner.

The new petrochemical complex is designed to produce 1.25 million tonnes of purified terephthalic acid (PTA), 840,000 tonnes of paraxylene and 340,000 tonnes of benzene annually. The project’s initial cost is estimated at $1.8 billion.

PTA is the primary raw material for the production of polyester, from which food and beverage containers, packaging materials as well as other consumer and industrial products are made.

The Mercury project could become SOCAR’s second major investment project in the petrochemicals industry in Turkey.

In 2008, SOCAR bought the Petkim petrochemical complex in the neighbouring country for $2.2 billion. Petkim is now 51 percent-owned by SOCAR Turkey Enerji A.S., which in turn is 87 percent-owned by SOCAR and 13 percent by Goldman Sachs International.

SOCAR said last month that its investment in the development of Petkim was worth 131 million Turkish liras ($16 million) in the first quarter of 2021, slightly down from 133 million liras in the same period last year.

Petkim reported a net profit of 892 million liras in the first quarter of 2021, compared with a net loss of 10 million liras in the same period last year.