Turkey is about to develop its first refinery for more than 40 years at Aliaga, near the Aegean port of Izmir. The $5.6 billion facility is being commissioned by Socar, the state oil company of Azerbaijan, and will be known as the Socar Turkey Aegean Refinery, or STAR for short.
When it is fully operational in 2018, STAR will process 10 million tonnes of crude oil a year, from which it will output 1.6 million tonnes of naphtha, 4.9 million tonnes of diesel and 1.63 million tonnes of jet fuel, as well as liquefied petroleum gas and petro-coke. This will make it the largest of the country’s five refineries.
Turkey imports around $20 billion worth of refining and petrochemicals products a year. With the STAR refinery online, we will cut that by $2.5 billion.
The plant is being built by TSGI, a consortium made up of Tecnicas Reunidas of Spain, Saipem of Italy, GS Engineering & Construction of Korea and the Itochu Corporation of Japan. ABB’s involvement with the project began as a consultant advising on the design of electrical systems and continued as the supplier of more than $100 million of goods and services related to the refinery’s electrification package.
Key products supplied include high, medium and low-voltage switchgear, power and distribution transformers, variable speed drives, uninterrupted power supply units, motor control centers, as well as substation automation and electrical SCADA for the complete plant.