Details added (first version posted on 10:50)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 14

Trend:

The signing ceremony of a new contract on development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of oil and gas fields was held with participation of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku Sept. 14.

The Azerbaijan government and the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), together with BP, Chevron, INPEX, Statoil, ExxonMobil, TP, ITOCHU and ONGC Videsh have today signed the amended and restated agreement on the joint development and production sharing (PSA) for the Azeri, Chirag fields and the Deep Water Portion of the Gunashli Field (ACG) in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea until 2050.

The contract is now subject to ratification by the Azerbaijani parliament.

BP will remain the operator in accordance with the amended and restated ACG PSA.

As part of the contract, the international co-venturers will pay a bonus of $3.6 billion to the State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) and SOCAR will increase its equity share in the ACG PSA from 11.65 percent to 25 percent. During the next 32 years, there is the potential for more than $40 billion to be invested in the ACG oil field.

Following the completion of the contract, the new ACG participating interests will be as follows: BP - 30.37 percent; AzACG (SOCAR) - 25.00 percent; Chevron - 9.57 percent; INPEX - 9.31 percent; Statoil - 7.27 percent; ExxonMobil - 6.79 percent; TP - 5.73 percent; ITOCHU - 3.65 percent; and ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) - 2.31 percent.

Subsequent to this contract, SOCAR and its co-venturers have also agreed to progress engineering development work to evaluate an additional production platform in the ACG contract area.