On December 20, technology licence agreements were signed between SOCAR and Technip, Univation, Axens, and SinopecTech which have important technologies in petrochemical industry.

The agreements envisage advanced processing of natural gas and production of high-quality polymer products using modern technology as a part of SOCAR GPC project.

Under the agreement, SOCAR acquires a licence to use technology within the framework of the project, while the companies granting that license to SOCAR provide engineering and design solutions for gas processing and gas chemical plants to be built in Garadagh, 15 km south of Baku.

The event started with a minute of silence for oil workers who went missing on December 15, during the accident at the platform of N. Narimanov OGPD, as well as for Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov who shot dead yesterday in Ankara as a result of terrorist attack since the event was attended by ambassadors of four countries.

After a short video about SOCAR GPC project, SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev welcomed the participants, spoke about achievements of new energy strategy conducted by Azerbaijan, the success of this strategy in the context of regional and international projects, including close relations of SOCAR with those foreign companies during the implementation of the projects. It was emphasised that Azerbaijan is an initiator and main participant in a number of projects crucial in energy security of the world.

Afterwards, participants of the project - Sinopec Deputy General Manager for Technical Issues Zhu Yinquan, President of Univation Technologies Steve Stanley, Sales Director at Axens SA Fabien Lundy, President of Technip EMIA Marco Villa, Executive Vice President of China Huanqiu Contracting & Engineering Corporation (HQC) Zhang Laiyonq, Vice President and General Manager for Engineering of Fluor Marc van Heyningen spoke at the event.

It was stated that the project, being of paramount significance for Azerbaijan, will be financed within the China's Silk Road Economic Belt project. SOCAR GPC project envisages export of natural gas and gas condensate produced from the processing of raw materials, C2+ fractions polymerisation, polyethylene and polypropylene products to Turkey, Western Europe, and China. Polyethylene exports are projected to start in 2022.

The new project includes construction of gas processing and gas-chemical plant with the annual capacity of 10 billion cubic metres, installation of gas-fired pyrolysis unit with the capacity of 610 thousand tons, polyethylene unit with the capacity of 600 thousand tons, including Butene-1 and Hexen-1 units which will operate within the gas-chemical plant, as well as establishment of a new thermal power plant to serve the plant and its facilities. Engineering, design, and construction of SOCAR GPC project will be implemented by the HQC.

The contracts were signed by SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev, Sinopec Deputy General Manager for Technical Issues Zhu Yinquan, President of Univation Technologies Steve Stanley, Sales Director at Axens SA Fabien Lundy, and President of Technip EMIA Marco Villa.

The event was also attended by the U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Robert F. Cekuta, French Ambassador Aurelia Bouchez, Italian Ambassador Giampaolo Cutillo, and Chinese Ambassador Wei Jinghua.

About Socar

SOCAR is an integrated state oil & gas company of Republic of Azerbaijan and is involved in upstream, midstream and downstream operations encompassing exploration of oil and gas fields, production, processing and transporting oil, gas and condensate, marketing of petroleum and petrochemical products in domestic and international markets and supplying natural gas to domestic and industrial customers in Azerbaijan. SOCAR has its trading companies in Switzerland, Singapore and UAE and representative offices in a number of other countries.