Azerbaijan's oil refining capacity reaches 30 mln tonnes per year - Aliyev

BAKU. Oct 5 (Interfax) - Demand from other countries for Azerbaijani oil products and gas is on the rise, and will continue growing amid ongoing conflicts and geopolitical tensions, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said.

"The new geopolitical and economic reality is that many countries today cannot obtain energy resources as they used to. In this context, Azerbaijan stands out as one of the few nations that produces, extracts and exports a full range of energy resources on a global scale, including crude oil, oil products, natural gas, electricity, petrochemicals, and fertilizers," he said in a speech at the congress of the New Azerbaijan party on Friday.

The current global crisis is linked primarily to the supply of oil products, and the situation in this regard is likely to deteriorate further, Aliyev said.

"Some traditional suppliers are already being forced to halt exports to meet domestic demand. I can also mention that Azerbaijan is receiving requests and appeals from many countries asking us to export our oil products to them," he said.

Aliyev said that Azerbaijan possesses oil refining capacity of 30 million tonnes per year.

"Of this volume, 7 million tonnes per year are processed at an oil refinery in Azerbaijan, while 23 million tonnes per year are processed abroad [in Turkey and Italy]. We took this step at the right time. We built one refinery from scratch [in Turkey] and acquired two others [in Italy]. As of now, not many countries control 30 million tonnes of oil products spread across three locations rather than just one. Given that, unfortunately, the wars around us show no signs of stopping, demand for our products and our gas will continue to rise," Aliyev said.