Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery Modernisation And Upgrade

Foster Wheeler announces that it has been awarded a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract to modernise the Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery (HAOR) in Baku, Azerbaijan. The contract, awarded by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), is part of a major investment to increase the refinery’s capacity and improve the quality of the fuel produced.

Foster Wheeler in alliance with SOCAR Foster Wheeler Engineering won the contract and will execute it in the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The scope of work is for the development of a number of facilities and the integration of technologies by other providers at HAOR. This will include new facilities for diesel hydro-treatment, isomerisation, methyl tertiary-butyl ether, fluid catalytic cracking gasoline treatment, sour water stripper, amine treatment and sulphur recovery. A number of existing facilities will also be revamped, including those for crude and vacuum distillation, fluid catalytic cracking and continuous catalytic reforming.

 

AZCO EPC signed a contract with SOCAR Foster Wheeler Engineering as a subcontractor to supply engineering and manpower services.

About Refinery:

Heydar Aliyev oil refinery, located in Baku in the Republic of Azerbaijan, processes 21 out of 24 grades of crude oil and 15 different petroleum products. It was named after Heydar Aliyev, the third President of Azerbaijan. The plant is owned and operated by State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).

The refinery meets the Republic of Azerbaijan's entire demand for petroleum products and exports 45% of the products. The petroleum products processed at the plant include automotive gasoline, aviation kerosene, diesel fuel, black oil, petroleum coke, and others.

The refinery is currently undergoing an extensive modernisation, which is intended to increase the processing capacity from the existing six million tonne (Mt) to 7.5Mt of oil a year by the end of 2018.

Details of the refinery modernisation and upgrade

SOCAR announced the liquidation of Azerneftyag Oil Refinery in January 2015, to merge it with the Heydar Aliyev refinery. The decision for the reconstruction and modernisation of the refinery was taken in October 2015.

The modernisation project will increase catalytic cracking unit capacity from 2Mt/y to 2.5Mt/y. The refinery will also be made compliant to meet Euro 5 standards to process all products.

The estimated investment for the refinery modernisation is $1bn. SOCAR received the first tranche of loan towards the project from the International Bank of Azerbaijan in October 2015.

Contractors involved

Foster Wheeler / SOCAR Foster Wheeler alliance was awarded the preliminary front-end engineering design (FEED) contract within the framework of modernization of the refinery in March 2016.

"The refinery is currently undergoing an extensive modernisation, which is intended to increase the processing capacity from the existing six million tone (Mt) to 7.5Mt of oil a year by the end of 2018."