Oil & Gas News

New onshore oil contracts
The 10th Caspian Oil and Gas-2003 exhibition and conference to be held in Baku over June 3 - 6 will be marked by signing new agreements on the development of a number of onshore hydrocarbon deposits in Azerbaijan. Following the announcement, Minister for Fuel and Energy Macid Karimov has told AssA-Irada that the ministry and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) are working on a special program in this direction, and are holding talks with several foreign oil companies over the issue.
Noting that the upcoming contracts envisage joint development of onshore accumulations with foreign partners, the minister said that relevant talks are to be finished by the end of May, with the results likely to be formulated in a draft agreement by the day of opening of the exhibition.
The last time the Caspian oil and gas show witnessed the signing of an oil contract was in 1998, when PSAs on Kurdashi and south-west Qobustan contracts areas were inked on June 2 of that year.
The Azerbaijani side signed the last, 21st production-sharing agreement with Russia's LUKoil, on the rehabilitation and development of the Zig-Hovsan onshore blocks in 2001. The parties, LUKoil and SOCAR have equal stakes in the project.
The upcoming exhibition and conference has been arranged by the Azerbaijani Chamber of Trade and Commerce, in co-operation with UK's Spearhead Exhibitions. To attach great importance to the jubilee character of the event, the organisers are planning several artistic programmes and a lavish banquet to be given in honour of participating Heads of State and be marked by fireworks.

Construction of BTC Georgian section to start
Though it had been planned to start construction of the Georgian section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) late in April, 2003, works have not commenced as yet. The Georgian Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Zurab Gumberidze, told Azernews last Wednesday that “relevant preparatory work in this respect has been completed  and construction of BTC is to commence next week.”

Kazakh oil transit via Azerbaijan to rise by 30-50 per cent
The Kazakh government is intending to increase by 30-50 per cent the volume of oil transit via the Aktau-Baku route passing through the territory of Azerbaijan. The Kazakh Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Andar Shukputov, has told AssA-Irada that relevant preparatory works are already under way and two oil tankers have been put on repair at the Aktau port.

Consortium ups oil and gas production plan
The Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) has over-fulfilled the oil and gas production plan for April.
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, SOCAR, told AssA-Irada within a month the partner companies managed to top the target of 74,700 cu m by 11.2 per cent, or 8,400 cu m.
Over January-April the consortium has extracted 311,700 cu m of natural gas, up 8.6 per cent on last year figure.

Int'l Mediterranean crude, oil products average quoting
Platt's European Marketscan has issued FOB MED (Italy) quoting for April of oil products on international markets. Under the quoting, metric tone of non-ethyl gasoline, reported $252.38, raw gasoline - $200.02, aviation fuel - $210.03, diesel fuel -$205.54, and sulfurous heating oil - $139.99.
A barrel of Brent (DTD) crude represented $24.85 and Ural (MED) crude - $22.62 in Platt's Crude Oil Marketwire.