New president of BP Azerbaijan appointed

Rashid will succeed Bill Schrader, who is to be chief operating officer of TNK-BP.

"Rashid Javanshir is the first Azerbaijani national to lead BP Azerbaijan which covers our entire business in this country and Georgia, and export operations in Turkey. This marks the successful culmination of BP Azerbaijan’s nationalisation plan aiming to develop Azerbaijani citizens to take over senior positions in all parts of our business," the company said.

“Rashid brings a deep technical understanding of the offshore Caspian, together with a broad business perspective developed over the past 14 years with BP. He takes over the leadership of BP’s Azerbaijan business at an exciting time with the second stage of the development of Shah Deniz ahead of us, and the exploration of the Shafag and Asiman prospects”, said Andy Inglis, BP’s chief executive officer for exploration and production.

“I would like to thank Bill Schrader who moves to TNK-BP after three successful years leading our businesses in Azerbaijan. In that time he has led the start up of Shah Deniz Stage 1, steady running of BTC and expansion of its capacity to 1.2 million barrels per day and first oil from Deepwater Gunashli. He has also continued the programme to develop Azerbaijani nationals which will now allow us to grow this world class business under national leadership,” Inglis added.

Rashid is currently executive vice president of BP Azerbaijan. He is responsible for all onshore operations in Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, the Baku Tbilisi Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) and the Shah Deniz project, with a particular focus on the commercialization of the Stage 2 project.

He has 14 years of leadership experience in BP. His previous roles include: exploration director Amoco Caspian Sea, president of Amoco Inam Operating Company, president of three BP Amoco-operated PSAs - Shah Deniz, Inam and Araz- Alov –Sharg, BP Group strategy development manager, based in London, vice-president for BP’s Southern North Sea business in Aberdeen, chief executive officer of the BTC Co. and vice-president of BP Azerbaijan for Onshore Operations.

Rashid holds a number of scientific and educational degrees as Professor of Geophysics, Doctor of Geology and Mineralogy, PhD in Geophysics, and M.Sc. in Geophysics. He is a member of Azerbaijan’s National Academy of Sciences. He also completed executive management programmes at Duke University, Rice University, and Harvard Business School.