Page 6 - FSUOGM Week 05 2020

FSUOGM COMMENTARY FSUOGM
Tajikistan’s first large-
scale refinery ready,
but waiting for oil
Securing oil supplies for re neries is a challenge in Central Asia’s more remote regions
TAJIKISTAN
WHAT:
Tajikistan claims its rst large-scale oil re nery could start up as early as March.
WHY:
The project has been delayed for years because of dif culties arranging oil supplies, and this issue has not yet been resolved.
WHAT NEXT:
There is little cause for con dence that the re nery’s launch is just around the corner, as authorities have suggested.
TAJIKISTAN expects to launch its rst large- scale oil re nery in March a er years of delays, a government o cial has said, helping the country wean itself o Russian fuel imports. But until oil supplies for the plant are arranged, the schedule remains up in the air.
e poorest of the ex-Soviet states relies heav- ily on imports of gasoline and diesel from Rus- sia. It has advanced a number of small-scale oil re ning projects in recent years to overcome this dependency, with varying degrees of success. But its main focus has been a plan to build a 10,000 barrel per day (bpd) re nery at a free enterprise zone (FEZ) in the southern town of Danghara, the birthplace of long-serving president Emom- ali Rahmon.
Chinese developer Dong Ting Heli signed an agreement with the Tajik government in 2013 to implement the project in two phases. e rst phase – priced at $160mn – will bring the re n- ery’s throughput capacity to 10,000 bpd, while a $300mn second phase will li it further to 24,000
bpd. e plant will manufacture diesel, gasoline and bitumen initially, and then LPG at a later stage. e re nery was originally slated to start up in late 2015, but its launch has been repeat- edly pushed back since then.
Addressing a press conference on January 30, Tajikistan’s Deputy Minister for Economic Development and Trade, Tojiddin Jurazoda, insisted the plant was all set to start handling oil.
“ e plant is completely ready for operation; all construction and installation work has been completed,” he told reporters.
Dong Ting Heli is currently negotiating long- term contracts to obtain oil supplies for the plant, from countries such as Russia and Kazkahstan, Jurazoda explained. ese supplies will be deliv- ered via rail, with talks also underway with tran- sit countries.
“Presumably the re nery will start operating in March, but we will refrain from talking about the launch date, because that question depends on the investor,” the o cial went on. A test batch
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 05 05•February•2020