Azerbaijan-based producer Norm Sement plans to start producing oil well cement from 2016 to reduce reliance on imports, Hasan Yalcinkaya, CEO of the company, said at a briefing yesterday.

Yalcinkaya said the company is also preparing to export its products to the Caspian Sea countries. “Currently, we are considering the opportunities for exporting our products to Russia’s south regions, as well as to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan” Trend News Agency quoted him as saying.

The plant produced 540,000t of cement in 2014, while clinker production totalled 471,000t.

Norm Sement is Azerbaijan's largest cement producer with a capacity of 2Mta at its Qizildas cement plant. This US$326m works started production in September 2013 and was inaugurated on 21 July 2014.