Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend I.Khalilova / On 28 November 2007 State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan received the first payment of 1,8 mln. dollars from Azerbaijan Gas Supply Company (operated by Statoil) in accordance with the Agreement signed between Azerbaijan Government and foreign extractive sector companies on the exploration, development and production sharing for the Shah Deniz prospective area in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea, a source stated in the SOFAZ.
The parties to the Shah Deniz production sharing agreement (PSA) are: BP (operator - 25,5%), StatoilHydro (25,5%), the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR - 10%), LUKOIL (10%), NICO (10%), Total (10%), and TPAO (9%).
The first gas in Shah Deniz with gas reserves of 1.2trln cu.m was produced on 10 November 2006. The gas produced in the field is delivered to Georgia and Turkey via the South Caucasus Pipeline. 8.8 bln cu.m of gas will be produced per year within Phase-1 of the development project of "Shah Deniz". Realizing the second stage will increase gas production up to 20bln cu.m.
The State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) was established in 1999 and its targets include accumulating the revenues of the Azerbaijani Government from the realization of the international agreements. The key expenditures of the SOCAR are to improve the social situation of the refugees and internally displaced persons suffered from the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and finance strategic infrastructure projects.