Gazprombank may provide up to $2 bln to build oil, gas chemical complex in Azerbaijan
BAKU. April 13 (Interfax) - Gazprombank is examining the possibility of participating in financing the project to build the oil and gas processing and petrochemical complex in Baku's Garadagh district, SOCAR GPC, Gazprombank First Vice President Alexander Kaznacheev told journalists on Thursday.
"It is too early to speak about the volume of financing that Gazprombank is prepared to provide for this project. However, we have an overall limit that we have set for ourselves - $2 billion for SOCAR - and within those limits will consider our participation," Kaznacheev said.
The documentation concerning the organization of project financing is currently being prepared, he said.
ING Bank, China Development Bank and Gazprombank are financial advisors to SOCAR GPC.
"It is assumed that a fairly large volume of financing for this project will be provided by the Chinese side. China is also considered to be a key end consumer, considering the project's orientation on exports. We are arranging the structure [of financing] taking this into account and hope that the GPC project will be implemented just as successfully as SOCAR Polymer," Kaznacheev said.
SOCAR GPC plans to start up operation of the $4-billion facility in Q1 2022.
The complex will have capacity to process about 10 billion cubic meters of gas a year.
It will include a steam cracking unit with capacity for 570,000 tonnes of ethylene and 120,000 tonnes of propylene a year, an LLDPE/HDPE polymerization block with capacity for about 570,000 tonnes of high density polyethylene and linear low density polyethylene and related infrastructure.
SOCAR (State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic) has signed a memorandum on financing for the project with Gazprombank and the Russian and Italian export credit agencies (EXIAR and SACE), as well as a memorandum with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
