ISTANBUL, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- An oil refinery built by Azerbaijan on Turkey's Aegean coast went into operation on Friday amid hope of helping Ankara cut dependence on foreign refined oil products.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev attended the ceremony to inaugurate the Star Refinery, the first new oil refinery ever built in Turkey in the past 30 years.
Addressing the opening ceremony, Erdogan said the Star Refinery is expected to cut Turkey's dependence on imported refined oil products significantly.
"It aims to save around 1.5 billion U.S. dollars every year in imports of petroleum products," he added.
The refinery in the Aliaga district of Izmir province was built by SOCAR Turkey, a subsidiary of Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR, at a cost of 6.3 billion dollars.
The refinery, with an annual production capacity of 10 million tons of crude oil, will also produce naphtha and jet fuel, according to a press release.
In a statement, the Turkish Presidency called it "one of the largest petroleum operations carried out in recent years in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa."
