[Premium] Socar Trading Revamps Business
Socar Trading – a subsidiary of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan – has not only strengthened its position in various markets, but has also diversified its business, according to the firm’s president Rovnag Abdullayev, speaking October 12 at an oil conference in Azerbaijan.
"In 2013, Socar Trading became the winner of a tender for providing energy resources, construction of a power plant and gasification for Malta and this year successfully implemented it with partners," he said.
He added that, within the framework of the project, starting 2018, Malta will be supplied with LNG volumes equivalent to 400mn m³/yr of natural gas.
A gas terminal and power plant built by Electro Gas Malta – of which Socar Trading is a founder – was opened in Malta on April 24, 2017.
At the end of this year Socar Trading intends to begin construction of a terminal in Cote d'Ivoire for regasification of LNG. In December 2016, France’s Total announced that Socar had bought a 26% stake in the LNG regasification terminal project in Cote d’Ivoire, which will have a capacity of 3mn mt/yr (4.15bn m³/yr). The CI-GNL (Ivory Coast LNG) consortium, led by Total, has since been awarded the right for construction and operation.
In December last year Socar told NGW that the company had, since January 2016, invested $4.49bn in foreign projects, of which $3.33bn (75%) was allotted to Turkey. It added that “Socar has invested $414.5mn in Switzerland, $334.3mn in Georgia, $280.8mn in Ukraine and $71.3mn in Romania.”
In 2016, Socar Trading sold 50mn metric tons of oil (29mn mt third-party) and 10mn mt of oil products (9mn mt third-party). Of the oil products sold 59% was light oil products, 5% medium distillates and 36% heavy distillates. The company did not divulge gas sales separately.
New Shareholder to Enter Tanap Project Soon
Socar Turkey Energy will complete the acquisition of a 7% stake in the Trans-Anatolian pipeline (Tanap) consortium by the end of the year, CEO Zaur Gahramanov said October 12, adding that certain delays are a result of legal procedures.
"The approval of the transaction takes place at the state level, then at the shareholder level and it is necessary to notify the creditors of the project, so the consent of more than 20 institutions is needed. The process of approval continues," he said. Tanap’s shareholders are: Azerbaijan's Southern Gas Corridor Co (SGCC)(58%), Turkish Botas (30%) and the UK major BP (12%).
The general director of SGCC Afgan Isayev told NGW September 20 that Azerbaijan has invested $7.6bn to date in the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), some 62% of its investment obligation. This figure includes the $1.71bn invested from January 1 to September 15 this year.
Isayev said that the second phase of the Shah Deniz gas field (SD2) is 95.9% complete, with the South Caucasus Pipeline Extension (SCPX) 89.8% complete; Tanap is about 80% and TAP around 50.7% finished. Azerbaijan has a 16.7% stake in the Shah Deniz field and the SCPX, plus a 58% interest in Tanap and a 20% stake in TAP.
SGC aims initially to transit 16bn m³/yr gas to Turkey and the EU by 2021. Its final capacity is 31bn m³/yr and is projected to become fully operational in the 2030s.
The late Azeri energy minister Natig Aliev told NGW June 2015 that Azerbaijan is hoping, in the best case, for profits in excess of $50bn from SGC. President Ilham Aliev appointed Parviz Shahbazov as the new energy minister on October 12, following the death of Aliev in June. Shahbazov served as the Azeri ambassador to Germany 2005-2016.
Ilham Shaban, Dalga Khatinoglu