SOCAR, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, has suspended work on the Mercury petrochemical complex construction project in Turkey, the president of SOCAR Turkey Refining and Petrochemical Business Unit (a division of SOCAR Turkiye Enerji - SOCAR's Turkish subsidiary) and the general director of the Turkish petrochemical complex Petkim, Anar Mammadov, said.

Source: Interfax

The goal of this project was to sell one million tonnes of reformate produced at the Star refinery in the domestic market of Turkey, leaving the added value in the country. We were forced to export it, because there were no buyers of this product in Turkey. In this regard, we proposed to implement the project for the construction of the Mercury petrochemical complex, but at the moment, the work has been stopped.

Anar Mammadov, General Director of the Turkish petrochemical complex Petkim

He recalled that the project was supposed to be implemented together with the British company BP, but "their complete withdrawal from the global petrochemical business was one of the reasons we stopped working on this project."

The second reason is that market conditions have seriously changed over the past five years and, accordingly, the initial estimates of the project have also changed. However, the Mercury project remains on the agenda, and work on it will resume when acceptable market conditions appear.

Anar Mammadov, General Director of the Turkish petrochemical complex Petkim

As reported, SOCAR planned in 2022 to make a final decision on investments in the construction project for the Mercury petrochemical complex. The company considered two options for the project: attract a partner with experience in the petrochemical sector, or invest together with a financial partner.

Negotiations were held with Ineos, which acquired BP's petrochemical assets, and with other investors.

The project included the construction of a petrochemical complex in the Aliaga region to produce 1.25 million tonnes of purified terephthalic acid (PTA), 840,000 tonnes of paraxylene (PX) and 340,000 tonnes of benzene per year.

The Mercury complex was planned to be built next to the Petkim petrochemical complex and the Star refinery. The cost of the project was estimated at $1.8 billion.

SOCAR Turkiye Enerji is the owner of a controlling stake (51%) of Petkim Petrokimya Holding.