Baku, September 10 - Neftegaz.RU. Total investments in Azerbaijan’s oil & gas sector amount to about $95 billion, Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said at the Azerbaijan Competitiveness Forum on September 7, Azerbaijan´s Trend reported.
«By the virtue of the oil and gas strategy conducted in Azerbaijan, modern technologies and best practices were attracted to this sector,» the minister said. He noted the importance of signing the Contract of the Century in the development of Azerbaijan’s oil & gas strategy, adding that this agreement continues to bring benefits to the country.
«Last year, the contract was extended until 2050,» Shahbazov said. «The new agreement provides for the investment of $40 billion and production of about 500 million tons of oil from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of fields.»
Azerbaijan will receive $3.6 billion from the extension of the ACG development in the form of bonus payments alone. During the next 32 years, investments as part of the new agreement on the development of the ACG block of oil & gas fields until 2050 may exceed $40 billion.
With the extension of the Contract of the Century, the share of Azerbaijan’s SOCAR increased from 11.65 % to 25 %. This will give the company the right to receive more dividends and more votes when making important decisions. At the same time, BP remains the operator of the project and retained a 30.37 % stake.
This is while the share of Azerbaijan’s profitable oil will be 75 %, while it reached 60 % by the end of 2016. For 24 years that have passed since the signing of the Contract of the Century in 1994, Azerbaijan has earned over $135 billion, given that most of this time, oil prices were lower than the current ones.
