Oil refining industry to be modernized further

The technical characteristics of the fuel and petrochemical plants built at Turkmenbashi oil refineries in collaboration with the leading companies from Japan, Germany, the United States, France, Turkey, Iran and Israel have no analogues in the region. In fact, putting these units into operation became a technological revolution in Turkmen petrochemical industry. Petrochemical workers of the littoral region use advanced, resource-saving, environmentally safe technologies to manufacture dozens of kinds of products including untreated gasoline, aviation and technical kerosene, hydrotreated diesel fuel, liquefied gas, petroleum coke, polypropylene and a wide range of diesel and universal oils.Today, a new large-scale investment project aimed at technology modernization and renovation of the leading petrochemical enterprise of the country has been launched at Turkmenbashi complex of oil refineries. The projects stipulates for the construction of a combined delayed coking unit (DCU) with the deasphalting unit (DU) which allows increasing the capacity of the enterprise and the effectiveness of refining crude oil into high-quality oil products and broaden exports.

The project on turnkey construction of the ultra modern unit amounted to over 200 million euros is implemented by the Turkish company Lotus Energy in accordance with the base project of the international corporation Foster Wheeler (USA) and the detailed drawings developed by the construction firm FW Italian – the Italian branch of the international corporation. The capacity of the delayed coking unit is 900,000 tons of per year and the capacity of the deasphalting unit is 500,000 tons. After these units are put into operation, the complex of oil refineries will increase production of the products, which are in high demand on the domestic and world markets. Coke is used as a fuel and reagent in ferrous and non-ferrous electrometallurgy for melting steel, producing aluminum and its alloys, manufacturing electrodes for various purposes.

Asphalt-free oil is the valuable material for producing engine oil and ecologically clean high-octane gasoline. Moreover, residual asphalt and tar will be used to produce high-quality road oil that is of particular importance for full-scale road construction launched throughout the country. In addition, the delayed coking unit with the deasphalting unit will manufacture large quantities of components, which will be used to produce motor gasoline, hydrotreated diesel and heating oil.
Thus, the strategy for fundamental renovation and technology modernization of Turkmenbashi oil refineries turns out to be well through-out in the context of the economic policy of Turkmenistan – the country with the largest hydrocarbon reserves in the world. This work is in progress aimed at enhancing the reliability of operation of interconnected units as well as designing new petrochemical plants in the country.