SOCAR’s oil trading arm plans for LNG market
According to Trend News Agency, SOCAR Trading SA – a trading house of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR – supplied more than 12 cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for a gas power plant in Malta.
“We are showing increased interest in LNG operations after successful participation in the gas power plant project in Malta. After the start of operations within the project in January 2017, SOCAR Trading specialists began to look for similar projects around the world. Pakistan, Benin and a number of states in the Mediterranean region are being considered. Today, active work is also continuing in Côte d’Ivoire, where it is planned to build a terminal for re-gasification of liquefied natural gas. Construction has not yet begun; however, most of the necessary research and planning has been completed,” the company informed.
SOCAR will begin delivery of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Pakistan in the coming months. The LNG will be delivered in two cargoes, 140,000 cubic meters each. The first cargo will be shipped on October 10-11; the second on October 20-21. Pakistan’s energy needs are 79.58 million tons of oil equivalent. Some 38 percent of these needs are met with natural gas, 34 percent with oil, and 6 percent with LNG and other resources.
Headquartered in Geneva, SOCAR Trading was incorporated in December 2007 as the marketing arm of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) with a mandate to market Azeri barrels produced from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field and other surrounding fields in Azerbaijan. While the company continues to market the bulk of SOCAR crude oil export volumes from Ceyhan port in Turkey, it has also been able to develop significant third-party volumes through both leveraging its system barrels, as well as its experienced traders developing new business.
As of June 2017, SOCAR Trading counts 257 employees worldwide, concentrated in its 5 main trading offices in Geneva, London, Singapore, Dubai and Houston as well as several other representative offices.
Established in 1993, briefly before the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) production sharing agreement was signed by Azerbaijan’s President Heydar Aliyev in 1994, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) was envisaged to be an integrated oil and gas company with assets across the entire value chain. While it has traditionally been an upstream oil and gas focused company, SOCAR now has a considerable presence in transport infrastructure and downstream, both in Azerbaijan and worldwide.
