Turkey okays creation of SOCAR-BP joint venture in petrochemical sector

BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22 By Leman Zeynalova – Trend: Turkey’s Competition Authority has approved the creation of a joint venture of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR and BP in the petrochemical sector, Trend reports citing the Competition Authority. “Creation of a joint venture by SOCAR and BP in the petrochemical sector in Turkey has been approved,” said the Authority. BP and SOCAR earlier applied to the Competition Authority to establish a fully functional joint venture, which will be controlled by the two companies to implement the project for construction of a petrochemical complex in Turkey. The complex will produce 1.25 million tons of purified terephthalic acid (PTA), 840,000 tons of P-Xylene (PX) and 340,000 tons of benzene annually, reads the report. The plant will reduce Turkey's PTA import to zero. It is planned to complete the plant's construction in 2024. Earlier, Zaur Gahramanov, CEO of SOCAR Turkey, said that the final investment decision on the project has been postponed to 2021. “There will be some delays in our investment calendar. We were also affected by the drop of oil prices to $20 per barrel. Prices ranging from $20 to $30 per barrel had a major impact on our and our partners' investment plans. We were planning to make the final investment decision of our second petrochemical plant at the end of 2020, but due to falling oil prices, we postponed the final investment decision to the last quarter of 2021,” he said. BP and SOCAR Turkey signed a heads of agreement (HoA) in 2018 to evaluate the creation of a joint venture that would build and operate a world-scale petrochemicals complex in Turkey. The facility will be located at SOCAR Turkey’s Private Industrial Zone in Aliaga, which includes STAR refinery and major Petkim petrochemicals site. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn