SOCAR expects growth in investments on oil and gas contracts

More than 200 million tons of oil was produced from the beginning of development of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli offshore fields' block in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, SOCAR's first vice-president Khoshbakht Yusifzade said in an interview to the Azerbaijan's ruling party official website. According to him, during this period over 50 billion cubic meters of gas was produced from the block.

Yusifzade said, more than 60 wells were drilled on the fields and now daily production hits more than 120,000 tons of oil and 35 million cubic meters of gas on these fields. Development of the ACG has started by signing "Contract of the Century" Sept. 20, 1994.

Yusifzade highlights two main results of the signing the contract. The first is that foreign countries and companies knew Azerbaijan as a stable country and believed in the safety of investing in this country. Signing of 31 contracts so far is evidence of it. Today works are being conducted on 14 contracts, which include 26 companies from 20 countries worldwide.

It is projected that investment in Azerbaijan, which will be involved in the exploration, development and transportation, will hit $60 billion within the framework of the signed contracts.

Yusifzade considers the second result of the signing the "Contract of the Century" creation of conditions for increasing oil production. In particular, in 2009 the amount of oil production in Azerbaijan hit 50.42 million tons compared to nine million tons in 1997. Possibility of opening new oil and gas fields in the Azerbaijani sector of Caspian Sea allows forecasting an increase in oil production in the amount of about 60 million tons in the country in 2015.

ACG participating interests are: BP (operator - 37.43%), Chevron (11.27%), SOCAR (10%), INPEX (10.96%), Statoil (8.56%), ExxonMobil (8%), TPAO (6.75%), ITOCHU (4.30%), Hess (2.72%).


/Trend/