SOCAR contract

State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (Socar) has selected Amec Foster Wheeler to modernise the Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery (HAOR) in Baku.

Amec won the front-end engineering design (FEED) contract in alliance with Socar Foster Wheeler Engineering and plans to execute it in the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The upgrade is part of Socar’s investment to increase the refinery’s capacity and improve the quality of the fuel produced.

Under the contract, Amec will develop various facilities and integrate technologies by other providers at HAOR.

The work will include an addition of new facilities for diesel hydro-treatment, isomerisation, methyl tertiary-butyl ether.

These facilities will also be used for fluid catalytic cracking gasoline treatment, sour water stripper, amine treatment and recovery of sulphur.

"The upgrade is part of Socar’s investment to increase the refinery’s capacity and improve the quality of the fuel produced."

Amec will also revamp various existing facilities, including those for crude and vacuum distillation, fluid catalytic cracking and continuous catalytic reforming.

Amec Foster Wheeler Group president for Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Southern Europe Roberto Penno said: "We have successfully delivered a number of projects for SOCAR, both in Azerbaijan and in other countries and look forward to continuing our partnership with this contract for the Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery, a particularly important facility for the country."

The work is scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2017 and the refinery modernisation process is expected to be completed within several phases until 2020.

HAOR processes 21 out of 24 grades of crude oil along with 15 different petroleum products, and meets the Republic of Azerbaijan’s entire demand for petroleum products and exports 45% of the products.

Image: Standing (L to R): Amec Foster Wheeler president Southern Europe Marco Moresco; Socar president Rovnag Abdullayev; Sitting (L to R): Amec Foster Wheeler commercial director Southern Europe Enzo Gioviale; Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery director Elman Ismayilov; Socar Foster Wheeler Engineering general manager Elmaddin Dadashov. Photo: courtesy of Amec Foster Wheeler.