Caspian Energy (CE): Mr. Ismayilov, for over 60 years the Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery has been supplying the growing market with oil products. What are the present capacities of the refinery? 

Elman Ismayilov, Director, Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery: Heydar Aliyev Baku Oil Refinery was created on July 29, 1953 in accordance with the former USSR Oil Industry Ministry’s order. However, the dynamic development began during 70-80s of the past century. This refers to introduction of new technologies and production facilities inseparably associated with the name of National Leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev.  It is noteworthy that all units currently operating at the refinery were built after 1976. The 6MTA ELOU-AVT-6 plant was commissioned (in 1976) within a short period of time; the process took only 2 years. 

The catalytic reforming unit producing high-octane petroleum on basis of the license of the American UOP Company, a global leader in this sphere, was built in December 1980. The refining capacity of this facility built in accordance with the project of the French company LITVIN totals 1mln tons. 

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

This year we are marking the 20th anniversary of the Contract of the Century. The signing of the Contract of the Century gave a new impulse to development of both the oil production and oil refining in Azerbaijan. Considering the significant role the National Leader played in history and development of the BOR, the facility has been named after Heydar Aliyev since 2004.

At present, Heydar Aliyev BOR is fully meeting Azerbaijan’s inner demand for oil products by means of four units and even exporting them.

CE: We are aware of the full-scale maintenance work carried out on the process units of the BOR. What could you tell about the results of this work? 

Elman Ismayilov: Since the beginning of the year we have been carrying out maintenance work almost at all processing units of the refinery. The objective is to meet growing demands of domestic and external markets and supply them with qualitative oil products. Moreover, the work on introduction of advanced technologies in production, modernization and application of automatic control systems over processes is being carried out at the refinery in order to provide rational oil refining. The main goal for the use of 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 aim of the ongoing repair work at the Refinery is to increase the oil processing depth, reduce energy consumption, enhance productivity of oil processing units and ensure safe operation.

The scope of reconstruction and repair work had been planned in advance and the maintenance conduction schedule was drawn up for each unit. According to this schedule, in January of the current year we finalized the maintenance of the hydro-treating unit of the catalytic reforming facility. The repair was carried out in connection with the problems revealed on this unit. Output lines of the compressor #111 were also cleaned during the maintenance work. Air coolers and heat exchangers were cleaned on the cooling system. Apart from this, new heat exchangers designed for heating of gas were connected to the system. 

In February we accomplished repair of the diesel fuel hydro-treatment plant of the catalytic cracking unit. The short-comings of the heat-exchange block were removed during the repair work. We substituted unsuitable to operation pipes in S-102 furnace with new ones and performed hydraulic tests in the furnace.

Late in March we performed a parallel repair of the catalytic reforming units and the first process stream of the delayed coking unit. In early April 2014 we finalized repair of the catalytic reforming unit and delayed coking unit.

Further, the operation of the main crude oil distillation unit ED-AVQ-6 and the catalytic cracking unit was suspended for repair. During the repair work the internal device of the column of the atmospheric and vacuum unit of the ED-AVQ-6 facility as well as transport lines and cyclone devices inside the regenerator of the catalytic cracking unit were replaced.

Now we are completing the construction of the unit for purification of dry gas coming out of the catalytic cracking unit. The construction of the unit is associated with the necessity for purifying dry gas shipped from the oil refinery to Ethylene-Polyethylene plant of Azerikimya PU. Gas purification on this new unit will be carried out by means of the amine solution of dry and circulating hydrogenous gas and the block of regeneration of saturated amine solution. The unit will enable to reduce emission of CO and CO2 at the expense of purification of gas that arises during the process. It will also enable to improve the system of cleaning of produced diesel fuel. The new unit is planned to be commissioned on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Contract of the Century. 

CE: What have been the main performance figures of the refinery since the beginning of 2014?

Elman Ismayilov: All operating processes of the catalytic cracking, delayed coking units and other sections of the refinery have been already computerized. Overall renovation has been carried out at workshops and production sections. All necessary conditions have been created for employees including provision of special summer and winter season clothes, footwear and jackets. Milk is supplied for employees engaged in operations with harmful working conditions. All safety regulations, quality of products and ecological requirements meet international standards at the refinery. 

According to the outcomes of 7 months of 2014, 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 in implementation of the production program owing to maximal use of human and technical resources. 

The refinery processed 3,386.5 thousand tonnes of crude through January-July 2014. Of this total, 2,385.9 thousand tonnes and 1000.6 thousand tonnes fell to the share of oil and external semi-finished products respectively. 

Owing to optimization of work related to the operation of the refinery and rational usage of capacities of process units, especially catalytic cracking and delayed coking processes unit that refer to reprocessing, created were conditions for production of more expensive oil products out of cheaper resources of heavy and light fuel oil components obtained during refining. 

Fulfilling President’s recommendations, the staff of the refinery increased the processing depth up to the highest rate in 2014. Thus, following the President’s order on maintenance of the high rate processing depth as it plays an important role in oil refining industry, we raised the processing depth up to 90% through January-July 2014. This indicator was achieved owing to the optimization of operation of processing units, especially due to the growth of efficiency of oil recycling units (catalytic cracking and delayed coking). 

In general, the Oil Refinery fulfilled the production plan by 103.7% during January-July 2014. 

The fact that the refinery, named after National 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.