The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) along with the State Committee on Standardization, Metrology and Patents of Azerbaijan, will be developing new national standards for the upcoming oil-gas refining and petrochemical production complex (OGPC) in the capital city of Baku. The new standards will be developed on the basis of 1,000 international and regional standards, and are planned to be used in the construction and operation of the new complex, which would be developed on the basis of an agreement signed between the Azerbaijan National Standardization and Certification Institute of the State Committee and SOCAR, reports Azerbaijani newspaper Azer News. Under the agreement, experts from the institute will explore the relevance of international and regional standards to the construction and operation of the new complex, and examine compliance with the draft standards.
SOCAR is currently working on the OGPC in Azerbaijan, and the construction of new facilities involves the dismantling of the current production enterprises, particularly oil refineries in Baku.
The construction of the OGPC would cost around US$ 17 billion, and is estimated to start operations between 2018 and 2020. The implementation period for the first stage of the project is two years and the overall duration of the project of eight years. The OGPC complex would have a petrochemical enterprise which would have an annual production capacity of 17 million tons of finished products.
