TURKMENISTAN MODERNIZES OIL REFINING.

Petrochemical firms from Japan, Germany, France, and Turkey and the state oil company of Iran have signed investment contracts with Turkmenistan’s Oil and Gas Ministry to modernize and expand the oil refinery in the Caspian city of Turkmenbashi (formerly Krasnovodsk). The multifaceted project, worth nearly $500 million, involves building a new refining plant for high-octane gasoline, a catalytic cracking plant, a plant for lubricating oils, and other new installations. The refinery currently operates with Soviet-era technology and well below its annual processing capacity of 6 million tons of crude. The new installations are being supplied on credit by the investing companies and are due to come on stream in 1998 and 1999. Turkmenistan will repay the credits from the refinery’s output, starting six months after the installations reach the projected capacity. (15)

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