BAKU, Jan 6 (Reuters) - SOCAR Turkey plans to spend around $7 billion on establishing several new polyolefin production facilities to expand capacity at its Petkim unit, Kanan Mirzayev, head of SOCAR Turkey's refining and petrochemicals division, said on Monday.

"A detailed front-end engineering design (FEED) for the facilities will be prepared in 2025-2026, requiring around $50 million in initial investments," Mirzayev said.

The decision was approved at a December board meeting, and the project is expected to be implemented over the next five to 10 years, he added.

"Turkey imports up to 90% of its polyolefins. This initiative will reduce dependency on imports and boost SOCAR Turkey's revenues," Mirzayev said.

A final investment decision is expected by the end of 2026.

Petkim, founded nearly 60 years ago, became wholly owned by SOCAR in 2008 after the Azerbaijani energy firm acquired a controlling stake for $2.04 billion. The unit operates 16 production plants and, in 2024, produced 2 million metric tons of petrochemicals, meeting 11% of Turkey's domestic demand.

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https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/socar-turkey-invest-7-billion-new-polyolefin-facilities-2025-01-06/