BAKU: Azeri state energy company SOCAR said on Thursday it has agreed with private Swiss trading house Aurora Progress to build an oil terminal in the United Arab Emirates' port of Fujeira, a major tanker refuelling centre. The terminal, which is expected to be ready by the beginning of 2011, will include 20 reservoirs for shipment and storage of up to 20 million tonnes of refined oil products annually. The terminal is expected to be used for oil products sold in this region, not Azeri-refined products. It will be managed by a joint company SOCAR AURORA. "There is a deficit of oil products. It's a growing market and we are ready to expand to it. So, we will need to have storage capacities here," a SOCAR official, who did not want to be named, told Reuters. The first stage of the project will cost up to $10 million and had received financing. SOCAR has a subrental agreement on a part of a major oil storage facility in South Korea, controls the Petkim chemical complex in Turkey and has plans to purchase oil refining capacity in Europe. Ex-Soviet Azerbaijan ships its oil and oil products via four main routes -- Russia's largest Black Sea port, Novorossiisk, neighboring Georgia's Supsa and Batumi ports and the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
