Azerbaijan, Baku, June 17 / Trend /
From January to April 2009, oil and gas production units of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (Socar) extracted nearly 22.2 million barrels (nearly 3 million tons) of oil from onshore and offshore fields in the country compared to 22.8 (nearly 3.1 million tons) during the same period in 2008, SOCAR said.
SOCAR's share of joint projects with foreign companies amounts to almost 5.8 million barrels; 778,300 barrels account for operating companies, 4.5 million barrels for the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli project and over 504,000 barrels for gas condensate from the Shah Deniz field.
SOCAR produced nearly 3.4 billion cu m of gas compared to 3.2 billion cubic meters for the same period of 2008. During this period, SOCAR's oil and gas production units (OGPU) produced over 3.1 billion cubic meters of gas. Joint ventures and operating companies transferred nearly 30.1 million cubic meters of gas to SOCAR.
In January-May, the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) produced 1.7 billion cubic meters of associated gas from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field compared to 687.7 million cubic meters in the same period of 2008.
There are 57 oil and gas fields in Azerbaijan, including 18 offshore. Socar has a staff of 62,000 employees.