Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct.15/ Trend, V.Zhavoronkova /
U. S. State Department supports additional energy development in Azerbaijan, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Eric Rubin said during a press conference in Baku on Monday.
"We obviously have supported western energy companies' efforts to help Azerbaijan develop these resources," he added. "We believe that there will be success and mutual benefit in this area. And we believe there is an additional potential."
Regarding the recent bp issue, Rubin said that it is not correct to comment the issues that are up to the relations between the company and the Azerbaijani government
Earlier addressing a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers to discuss the results of the country's socio-economic development in nine months of 2012, and outline further priorities, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said that serious mistakes of international consortium (Azerbaijan International Operating Company), operator of which is the company BP, led to a sharp decline in oil production on the Azeri and Chirag fields.
The contract on the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli full field development was signed in 1994.
Participants of the project to develop Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli are: BP (operator - 35.83 percent), Chevron (11.27 percent), Inpex (10.96 percent), AzACG (11.6 percent), Statoil (8.56 percent), Exxon (8 percent), TPAO (6.75 percent), Itocu (4.3 percent) and Hess (2.72 percent). Hess has sold its share to Indian ONGC, the transaction will be completed in the first quarter of 2013.