Hamza Karimov, general manager of Socar's Romanian office, saysthat after Azerbaijan has in recent years completed its hydrocarbontransport infrastructure and started building a huge refinery ofaround 4bn dollars in Turkey, retail expansion has been the nextlogical step for the state-owned giant.
For Romania, 10m-euro investments in 15 filling stations havealready been scheduled, with the first stations set to becomeoperational in around three months. The rest of 285 would follow intwo-three years.
At the end of last week, Socar president Rovnag Abdullayev, madea surprising announcement regarding Socar's expansion plans, sayingthe company wanted to go from zero to 300 filling stations inRomania in the next two or three years, rivalling alreadyestablished players on the domestic market, such as Russia's Lukoilor Rompetrol.
Taking into account investments in a filling station revolvearound 1-1.5m euros, the Azeri company's plans translated in moneypoint to around 450m euros in a market short of spectacularincreases in recent years and that is already divided between majorcompanies: Petrom, Rompetrol, Lukoil, MOL and Eni.
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