SOCAR, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic and Aurora Progress, the Swiss based commodity trading house, have announced today that they will partner in the development of oil storage facilities, including the new 641,000m3 oil products storage terminal being built in the Port of Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates.
“SOCAR is keen to establish a strong asset base that can contribute to its ongoing international and downstream growth. The development in Fujairah is in a key trading hub where volumes are increasing substantially — clearly this is a strategic asset for the future development of the SOCAR group,” said SOCAR Trading CFO Zaur Gahramanov.
SOCAR Trading may itself rent some of the capacity in the terminals under development, but first and foremost these are going to be tank storage operations that will be providing first rate services to customers. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic is responsible for managing all oil and gas assets and activities for the Republic of Azerbaijan. The company holds a direct stake in the Azerbaijan International Operating Company, which operates the giant ACG oil fields in the Caspian Sea, as well as in the 1 million barrel-per-day BTC crude export pipeline between Baku and the port of Ceyhan in Turkey. In addition, SOCAR is responsible for marketing all State volumes on the part of the Azerbaijan State Oil Fund SOFAZ, and holds participations in a range of other onshore and offshore fields and projects in Azerbaijan including its large new gas fields like Shah Deniz and Absheron.
“We are delighted to have an organisation of SOCAR’s scale and significance partner with us in developing these terminal assets,” said Ammar Kutait of Aurora. “We are now focusing on the construction of the first phase of our Fujairah terminal to be operational early next year. In recognition of the partnership we will be renaming this facility the ‘SOCAR AURORA Fujairah Terminal,” he added.
SAFT Terminal Facts:
Socar Aurora Fujairah Terminal: The terminal consists of 641,000m3 of storage across 20 tanks and can handle fuel oils, gasolines, naphthas and middle distillates (diesel, gasoil & jet kerosene) and will be equipped with both tank-to-tank and in-line blending facilities. SOCAR AURORA will be an independent terminal operator offering storage capacity to third parties. The Port of Fujairah is commissioning this year a new multi berth facility for the receipt and loading of oil tankers. Ammar Kutait has been appointed as CEO of the Joint Venture with the appointment of the CFO to be made shortly.
