Caspian Energy (CE): Mr. Ismayilov, Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. How would you characterize the way that the refinery has passed? 

Elman Ismayilov, Director, Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery: Azerbaijan, with rich 160-year oil production history, always required modern oil refining enterprises. The growing demand for oil products led to creation of the Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery (BOR) in accordance with the USSR Oil Industry Ministry’s Decree issued on July 29, 1953. But the main era of refinery’s development along with the introduction of new technologies and production facilities is inseparably associated with the name of Nationwide Leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev who personally initiated this work in 1970s.  It is noteworthy that all units currently operating at the refinery were built after 1976. 

Owing to the far-seeing  policy of Heydar Aliyev, the 6MTA ELOU-AVT-6 plant was installed (in 1976) at the refinery within a short period of time; the process took only 2 years. 

In December 1980, the Nationwide Leader of Azerbaijan initiated construction of the catalytic reforming unit for production of high-octane petroleum on basis of the license of the American UOP Company that is considered to be a global leader in this sphere. The refining capacity of the catalytic reforming unit built in accordance with the project of the French company LITVIN totals 1mln tons. It is noteworthy that this unit was initially planned to be built at Moscow oil refinery, but later owing to personal interference of Heydar Aliyev this unique device was commissioned in Azerbaijan. 

Working in Moscow in 1980s, Heydar Aliyev kept contributing directly to further development of the sphere. Thus, a delayed coking unit was launched at BOR in 1986. Later, the catalytic cracking unit Q-43-107M was commissioned in 1993 after Heydar Aliyev’s return to power. 

Thanks to these 4 units Heydar Aliyev BOR is fully meeting Azerbaijan’s needs for oil products and is able to export them as well. 

Considering the significant role the Nationwide Leader played in history and development of BOR it has been named after Heydar Aliyev since 2004. Nowadays, the production capacity of the refinery totals 6 mln tons of oil per year. Plans aiming at the capacity growth are under development now.  Motor fuel is the main product of the refinery along with all types of petrol, diesel fuel, jet fuel as well as liquid gas, coke, black oil and other oil products. 

We are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the plant this year. In this regard, an organization committee designed for conduction of appropriate events has been created. 

CE: What technological changes and innovations are currently being introduced at the refinery?

Elman Ismayilov: The work on introduction of advanced technologies in production, modernization and application of automatic control systems over production processes has been carried out at the refinery in order to provide rational oil refining. The main goal for the used latest technologies in production is to reduce operating costs, energy consumption, increase the depth of processing and produce high-quality products meeting the world standards. 

The final feasibility study of the project on reconstruction of the crude oil distillation plant ED-AVQ-6 is under development now, and whereupon the scope of reconstruction work will be determined. The future plans envisage reconstruction of the catalytic cracking, catalytic reforming and delayed coking units. The works aim at growth of the oil processing depth, reduction of energy expenditures and increase of the output of oil processing units. 

We have recently made a number of changes in the technological scheme of the crude oil distillation plant ED-AVQ-6 #21. In particular, new heating equipment has been installed on the column K-3 in accordance with the new technological scheme. Besides, new modern large-scale heat exchangers were installed on columns K-3 and K-8 to cool light fractions. They had not been envisaged in the technological scheme before, a new project was developed and realized. All of this ensures the quality growth of the output. 

Among other serious technological innovations noteworthy is the installation of new sprayers on furnaces 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. It promotes fuel saving and positively affects the improvement of the ecological environment. Meanwhile, it will also extend the service life of furnace sections. 

We commenced broad modernization work in the vacuum part of the plant. In particular, three units of vacuum pumps N-9 were replaced. An order for new vacuum systems was placed at Techno-vacuum engineering company. Apart from this, a column is under reconstruction on basis of the project of Grich Company, certain elements will be purchased and replaced. 

In April we purchased and replaced 24 new elements of air cleaners T-15 and T-17 which ensure efficient cooling of upper fractions of columns K-1 and K-2. 

In the same month we performed operations on modernization of the vacuum section of the former plant #22 and re-launched it. We have recently completed its testing. All of this was done so that we could stop the operation of the vacuum column of the plant #21 at any time and have it reconstructed. We may say we managed to  create these conditions by now. Necessary lines have been laid along with the testing. So, the vacuum section of the plant #22 of former ELOU-AVT-2 is fully ready for operation. 

The work on equipment modernization at other plants is also ongoing. The matter concerns the repair of the catalytic reforming plant #31. Centrifugal-compressor machine operating for a long period was fully inspected and now we are installing a new rotor. We are doing this work jointly with invited foreign specialists. 

Delayed coking plant #43 will be also modernized. Here we plan to carry out maintenance operations as the large-scale work was done on the plant in previous years including the replacement of output lines from reactors into the columns. Then, we installed new furnace pumps, and now we plan to buy the third furnace pump. All of it ensures stable operation of furnaces and plants. 

Another technological innovation has been introduced in the workshop #6 of the chemical plant: we reconstructed the former plant #65 designed for chemical desalination of water and linked it to the process of the chemical water purification. It is also ready for operation. Reagents have been purchased. It will enable to meet the plant’s demands for chemically purified water. 

CE: What work is carried out to provide dry gas supply to SOCAR enterprises in Sumgayit?

Elman Ismayilov: In view of SOCAR management’s order to provide additional raw materials to the Ethylene-Polyethylene plant of Azerikimya PU the decision on supply of dry gas, coming out of the catalytic cracking unit, and supply of naphtha, produced by our refinery, was made. A 60km long gas pipeline for transportation of dry gas, including 31km of line 200mm in diameter in the direction of Guzdek and 25km of line 350mm in diameter in the direction of the city of Sumgayit, was laid from the Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery toward the Ethylene-Polyethylene plant of Azerikimya PU. The pipeline diameter laid from Guzdek toward Sumgayit was increased as SOCAR’s Gas Processing Plant is expected to be linked to this line in future. 

Considering the economic importance of the project, the Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery mobilized all internal capacities. As the purchase and delivery of new equipment takes long time, the compressor RK-102-2 placed on the catalytic cracking plant #55 (section #100) was reconstructed for transportation of dry gas. According to the project, 92,000 tons of dry gas are planned to be transported to the Ethylene-Polyethylene plant. Thus, the first stage of the big project, ensuring the production growth at Azerkimya PU’s Ethylene-Polyethylene plant and turning it into an industrial enterprise meeting modern standards, has been completed successfully. 

The second stage of the project related work has been commenced after completion of the first one. It is necessary to clean dry gas from sulfur and CO2 at this stage. The necessity for commissioning the monoethanolamine (MEA) treatment unit as well as designing and construction of the unit for regeneration of the saturated solution of MEA arose. Analysis of internal resources showed that regeneration of the saturated solution of MEA can be reached by means of the plant #54 of BOR (Baku Oil Refinery). Assembling operations of this unit are already underway. Certain equipment is bought whereupon this unit will be commissioned. All this will enable to broadly improve quality of dry gas transported to EP-300 plant in Sumgayit, and save certain reagents like caustic soda. 

One of the main goals for now is to prepare the dry gas transportation unit for operation. Certain sections of this unit have been already prepared. The unit on the coking plant #43 will be commissioned during the maintenance work. 

CE: What have been the main performance results of the oil refinery since the beginning of 2013?

Elman Ismayilov: All the processing units and sections of the refinery have been computerized so far. Overall renovation has been carried out at workshops and production sections. All necessary conditions have been created for employees including provision of special clothes and footwear for winter and summer season,  milk supplies for employees engaged in jobs with harmful working conditions. All safety regulations, quality of products and ecological requirements meet international standards at the refinery. 

The work that the refinery specialists do enables to ensure high level control over production process that also leads to achievement of positive results. The control over waste of energy, reagents and water meant for chemical purification has been increased. The percentage rate growth of output of light products after primary processing has been ensured. I.e. it is much higher than the plan. All production processes ensuring development of the refinery have been thoroughly analyzed. Appropriate organizational-technical measures have been worked out and introduced for solution of arising problems. 

According to the outcomes of the first quarter of 2013, the management and the staff of the refinery have successfully fulfilled all the tasks and assignments of SOCAR. As the result, high performance indicators were fixed owing to maximal use of human and technical resources in implementation of the production program. 

The refinery processed 1542.3 thousand tons of crude in the first quarter of 2013. Of this total, 1074.4 thousand tons and 467.9 thousand tons fell to the share of oil and other semi-finished products respectively. 

Owing to optimization of work associated with the operation of the refinery, rational usage of capacities of technological units, especially catalytic cracking plants that refer to reprocessing and delayed coking processes, created were conditions for production expensive oil products out of bright stock of heavy and light fuel oil resources obtained during refining. 

Visiting the refinery in 2004, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev expressed a high evaluation to the work of oil refinery workers and said: “You know perfectly well that the depth of oil processing is the main indicator for workers engaged in this sphere. I am pleased to note that this indicator has exceeded 60% since 2003”. 

Fulfilling President’s recommendations, the staff of the refinery increased the processing depth up to the highest rate in 2013. Thus, following the order given by the head of the state for maintenance of the high rate processing depth as it plays an important role in oil refining industry, we raised the processing depth up to 92% in the first quarter of 2013. Compared to the same figure of the past year, the depth of oil processing at BOR grew by 3.8%. This indicator was achieved owing to the optimization of operation of production units especially due to the growth of efficiency of oil reprocessing units (catalytic cracking and delayed coking). 

In general, the Oil Refinery fulfilled the production plan by 103.4% during the first quarter of 2013. 

The fact that the refinery, named after Nationwide Leader Heydar Aliyev, has been actively developing is clear. All of it promotes further fruitful work of the personnel this year and fulfillment of all tasks assigned by the management of SOCAR.