Oil & Gas News

Northern oil pumping suspended again

Oil pumping through Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline was suspended Friday due to the repair by Russian pipelay company Transneft in the flooded regions this summer.

The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan told AssA-Irada Saturday that the suspension would not affect the Azeri oil export schedule.

SOCAR has exported 125,000 tons of oil through the northern route in July. The pumping will be resumed with the same schedule after the refurbishment.

Oil fund is

584m US dollars rich

The revenues of the Azerbaijan State Oil Fund have made up 542,930,3mln manat this year, while the expenditures constituted 44636.7 manat. The oil fund is now 2845244,7mln manat or 584 US dollars rich, according to the fund.

Scientists studying 'firm landscape' along BTC

Azeri, Georgian and Turkish scientists have recently met to combine efforts in assessing the estimated firmness of the terrain along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main export pipeline for possible oil spill prevention, an Azeri expert has told AssA-Irada.

The risk for oil spills exists because of technical problems and activities of Armenian and Kurdish terrorists in the region.

According to the expert, researches into possibilities of rapid self-purification of the pipeline stretch and development of scientific technologies for soil purification in case of oil pollution are necessary.

Emergency reaction plans should be highly effective to maintain the ecological balance in the South Caucasus. Under this project, the researches should be conducted within two years.

The scientists from the Soil Science and Microbiology Institute of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, the Georgian Academic Institute and Turkish universities have been involved in the project implementation.

Public organizations mull Oil Fund

An international conference "Oil funds, formation experience, activities and development prospects" organized by the Public Forum for Azerbaijan and the Open Society Institute, Soros Foundation was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel of Baku Thursday.

Taking part in the gathering were representatives from oil companies in Azerbaijan, public organizations, foreign embassies and political parties. President of the forum Eldar Namazov said the conference aimed to draw the attention of the public to shaping the oil fund, provide transparency in its activities, seek ways of recovery of the fund and provision of public control over its expenditures.

Coordinator of the Caspian Review Watch project of the Soros Foundation Svetlana Tzalic underlined the need for developing not only oil industry, but also other spheres in Azerbaijan.

The participants in the gathering reached a common ground that the activities of the oil fund should be transparent and open to the public.

President of the Fund for Assistance to the Development of Entrepreneurship and Market Economy Sabit Bagirov said 580mln US dollars had been transferred to the oil fund over six months. He said it would be reasonable to allot funds to the development of infrastructure and open new jobs.

The budget of the fund might rich 700mln US dollars before the end of the year, while the figure is estimated to be 630mln US dollars due to the recent allocations amounting to 60mln US dollars from the oil fund for construction of accommodation for refugees.

Huge platform constructed

The construction of 14 meter-deep new large platform #210 has been completed on the Darvin Bank field in a bid to extract what specialists believe could be huge oil remainders, according to SOCAR. The platform will be employed to drill up to 20 wells in different directions, the majority being gusher wells with an output of 10-12 tons, in some even 15-20 tons, a day.

16bln manat or over 3m US dollars has been spent on the construction ordered by Abseronneft oil and gas producing unit. The field was put into commissioning in 1950, producing 16m tons of oil to date.