Socar ‘prays’ for end of Petkim monopoly

İZMİR - Anadolu Agency

Socar Turkey CEO Kenan Yavuz speaks at a meeting on the company’s future prospects and plans held in Aegean procince of Izmir. AA Photo

Socar Turkey, owner of the Turkey’s sole petrochemical company Petkim, longs for a competitor in the market, which would release it from its “burden,” Socar Turkey President Kenan Yavuz has said.

“There is nothing worse than being the sole producer in a fully competitive market as Turkey,” Yavuz said yesterday at a meeting held in İzmir, where the main facility of Petkim is located.

Socar Turkey has been controlling the producer, which only kind of its own in the market, since its privatization in 2008.

Foreign rivals

Yavuz said everybody thought it was an advantage to have a monopoly in the market, but it was hard to operate a monopoly in open economies, as the only competitors of Petkim are the international producers importing petrochemical goods and selling at cheaper prices. All international producers are selling goods in Turkey at only production cost, and there are today 69 foreign producer competitors in the market, Yavuz said.

“We’re facing an incredibly unfair competition and as Petkim we’re praying for establishment of a new petrochemical facility in Turkey,” he said, adding he did not think anyone would dare to make a real refinery investment beside Socar.

Yavuz also spoke about Star refinery, an additional facility to the existing Petkim plant, and said the refinery’s investment cost would be $5 billion in total and would be finished within 49 months from now on.