Azerbaijan, Baku, 13 March / Trend, E. Ismayilov /
SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) plans to direct part of the proceeds from the second Eurobonds issue for execution of obligations on external borrowings, president of SOCAR Rovnag Abdullayev told reporters on Wednesday.
On March 11, SOCAR placed Eurobonds in the amount of $1 billion for 10 years on the CEEMEA market (Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa) at 4.75 percent yield per year. Total volume of orders exceeded the volume of Eurobonds by three times.
SOCAR placed its debut Eurobond issue worth $500 million in February 2012.
"Most of the proceeds raised from Eurobonds placement will be directed to repay previously borrowed loans, and part of the funds will be used to increase oil production in the fields developed by SOCAR independently," Abdullayev said.
According to him, development of the program will be completed in early April, and the main goal is to increase oil production by at least one million tons, and, at most, two million tons. Last year, the State Oil Company produced 8.3 million tons of oil.
"The increase in oil production is planned through the use of new and advanced technologies, mainly on SOCAR's offshore fields", Abdullayev said.
According to the head of the company, the last and current issue of Eurobonds reflected SOCAR's fairly high position in international financial markets. 41 percent of Eurobonds issue was purchased by investors from Europe, 32 per cent - from the United Kingdom, 25 percent - from the U.S., two percent - by other investors.
"This high position should be maintained when issuing corporate obligations for placement on the local capital market," Abdullayev said, adding that implementation of this process should ensure transparency and meet all international standards and requirements in this area.
At present, he said, work on the issue of domestic corporate bond is in progress.