The Tajik authorities expect to establish cooperation with the Tatarstan oil company “Tatneft” on the launch of the country's largest oil refinery TK-Oil, located in the “Dangara” free economic zone of the Khatlon region, TASS reports.
Minister of Industry and New Technologies of Tajikistan Sherali Kabir said last Wednesday during the forum of business circles of Tajikistan and Tatarstan in Dushanbe that one of the key issues of increasing the level of cooperation between the two republics is to improve the production of fuels and lubricants.
He noted that there is a refinery in the “Dangara” free economic zone, which will be shown to Tatarstan investors.
"I believe that through cooperation, the creation of new mechanisms for launching this enterprise together with “Tatneft”, we could make great progress on this issue,” – the minister said.
In February of this year, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Tajikistan reported that the Azerbaijani Oil and Gas Company SOCAR will help in providing raw materials and launching the TK-Oil refinery.
“As a result of the negotiations, the parties came to a common decision that SOCAR, taking into account its rich experience and wide potential, will support the TK-Oil refinery both in launching and in further providing it with raw materials,” – the ministry noted.
It was reported that the Azerbaijani company is currently studying the documentation provided by the TK-Oil refinery.
“Work is underway, we hope that the plant will be put into operation in the near future,” – the Ministry of Economic Development added.
The construction of the refinery, with a design capacity of 1.2 million tons of oil per year, began in 2014 on the territory of the “Dangara” free economic zone. The plant was built by the joint Tajik-Chinese enterprise TK-Oil, established by the Chinese company Dong Ying heli Investment and Development, and was commissioned in 2018, but since then the enterprise has been inactive due to the lack of supplies of raw materials on acceptable terms. Periodically, intentions were reported to supply oil for this plant from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran, but the issue still remains unresolved.
Even at the beginning of construction, independent experts were skeptical about the construction of a large refinery in a country that does not have sufficient oil reserves.
For reference, oil production in Tajikistan in 2023, according to statistics, amounted to only 18 thousand tons. This covers only about 1.5% of the total demand of the “Dangara” refinery.
Last year, operating small refineries produced about 4.2 thousand tons of gasoline, 2 thousand tons of diesel fuel, about 3.9 thousand tons of fuel oil and 3.2 thousand tons of bitumen in the republic.
Meanwhile, according to the Antimonopoly Service under the government, Tajikistan imported more than 1 million tons of petroleum products and 411 thousand tons of liquefied gas in 2023. Russia remained the main supplier of petroleum products to the republic, and Kazakhstan remained the main supplier of liquefied gas.
