Socar makes top money transfer for FDI

ANKARA - Reuters

SOCAR Turkey head Kenan Yavuz is seen in the picture. DHA photo

Some $475 million has recently been transferred to Turkey from Azerbaijan to finance the forthcoming expenditures in the STAR Refinery in addition to some $350 million worth of previous money transfers, said head of SOCAR Turkey Kenan Yavuz, noting that this was the largest money transfer to have been spent as foreign direct investment in Turkey. 

Socar Turkey and a consortium led by Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas signed an agreement in May to build STAR Refinery, worth $4.3 billion in the western province of İzmir. 

Yavuz said the refinery project was the most important part of Refinery Petrochemistry-Energy-Logistic Integration investments worth $9 billion in Petkim Peninsula. The money transfer of $475 million raised their refinery company’s capital to $1.9 billion, he said.

Yavuz stated that the total cost of the project would be $5.5 billion, of which $1.9 billion would be financed by equity capital. After using this capital, they planned to start using foreign resources provided by loans. 

Star Refinery is planned to have an annual capacity of 10 million tons to refine different crude oil types.
The refinery is planned to produce annually 4,900,000 tons of ultra-low sulfur diesel, 1,300,000 tons of naphtha, 457,000 tons of mixed xylene, 1,630,000 tons of jet fuel, 260,000 tons of LPG, 525,000 tons of reformat, 692,000 tons of petroleum coke and 159,000 tons of sulfur.

The refinery is slated to be completed by 2017, Yavuz said.