Azerbaijan, Baku, 16 January / Trend corr S. Aliyev / A report by the American Lehman Brothers concerning the decrease in BP income in 2008 due to projects in Azerbaijan has caused a significant drop in the stock rate of the oil company at the New-York Stock Exchange by more than 2% on 16 January.
According to the appraisal by the Lehman Brothers analysts, this year BP received $1.2bln less from the development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea (BP is the operator of the project).
A decrease in the income of BP Azerbaijan in 2008 is explained by the high oil prices in the world, a source in the Azerbaijani oil industry said to Trend on 16 January.
According to the forecasts, this year Azerbaijan will increase its income from produced oil from 55% to 70% through high oil prices. Therefore, the income of the foreign companies (including ВР) will drop from 45% to 30%.
By the end of this year the volume of daily oil production in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli will be increased to 1mln barrels every 24 hours. Currently, it is 720,000 barrels every 24 hours.
The agreement of the joint development project was signed in September 1994 for a contract period of 30 years. Production at Chirag began in 1997, the Central Azeri commenced at the beginning of 2005, the West Azeri at the beginning of 2006, and the East Azeri began at the end of 2006.
The parties involved in the project are BP (operator - 34.136%), Chevron Texaco (10.281%), SOCAR (10%), INPEX (10%), StatoilHydro (8.563%), ExxonMobil (8%), TPAO (6.75%), Devon Energy (5.626%), Itochu (3.920%), Delta Hess (2.721%).