Oil & Gas News

Azpetrol wins int'l Quality Award

Azeri oil company Azpetrol was conferred the international For Quality Award at the meeting of the 16th International Quality Convention at New York's Marriott Marquise Hotel.

Azpetrol has also won the Quality Summit New York 2002 Golden Award.

Switzerland imports Azeri oil

The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan has exported the scheduled 135 million tons of oil for Clean Core in Switzerland through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline this month, according to SOCAR.

70 percent workforce in McDermott Azeris

Over 70 percent of McDermott's workforce at the SPS facility are trained Azeri craftsmen and professionals-the number of Azeris employed by McDermott is by far the largest number of Azeris employed by any single contractor working for AIOC on Phase-1 of the Full Field Development project.

Under the terms and conditions of its contract with AIOC for Phase 1 Full Field Development contract for topsides fabrication, McDermott currently employs over 600 Azeris in its topsides fabrication labor force and over 150 Azeris in its topsides project management team. The topsides fabrication labor force will grow to over 900 Azeris over the next six to eight months. Additionally, McDermott will employ over 250 Azeris in its offshore operations department for installations of Phase 1 pipelines.

"AIOC promised jobs for 3,000 Azeris split amongst the different contractors working on Phase 1 project and McDermott will employ over 1,300 Azeris on this first phase of the ACG project", McDermott's General Manager for the Caspian Clint Anderson said.

Over the next two years, McDermott may supplement its core Azeri workforce with foreign specialists, not available in Azerbaijan, as required to meet its schedule commitments to AIOC and SOCAR.

"While we will train Azeri specialists for these types of work, to minimize the need for employment of foreign specialists, these types of employee contract options provide us with the required flexibility to recruit the people of the highest qualifications necessary to deliver the project to AIOC and SOCAR at the lowest possible cost, while complying fully with the tax codes of Azerbaijan", concluded Mr. Anderson.

McDermott has been in Azerbaijan since 1992.

Mediterranean oil price quoting

Platt's European Marketscan has issued August's FOBMED oil price quoting, as non-ethyl gasoline cost 259.55 dollars per metric ton, gasoline 217.79, aviation kerosene 226.23, diesel fuel 213.92, and one-percent sulfuric heating oil 141.93 dollars.

Meanwhile, Platt's Crude Oil Marketwire has quoted a barrel of Brent (DTD) crude at 26.65 and Ural (MED) at 25.68 dollars.

New well comes on line

A new well yielding a daily portion of 15 tons of oil has been put into commissioning on the Suraxani field of SOCAR's onshore oil and gas producing unit, according to the oil company. Though in operation for a long time, the field is said the most promising in the country.

245,000 tons of oil via north pipeline in Sept

245,000 tons of oil will be exported through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in September. The first portions of the crude, which will be loaded on tankers in the Russian port of Novorossiysk on 20-21 September, was transported for Swiss Western Petroleum Monday, according to the State Oil Company.