US to further cooperate with Azerbaijan in oil & gas sector: ambassador

Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 14

By Azad Hasanli – Trend:

The US will continue to cooperate with Azerbaijan in the oil and gas sector and support the country’s development, US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Robert Cekuta told reporters in Baku Sept. 14.

“As Azerbaijan enters a new threshold and even more promising phase of energy development, we will look forward to working with Azerbaijan to develop new oil and gas resources and bringing them to the market,” he said. “The US has long been a partner of Azerbaijan’s major strategic projects in oil and gas sector and we will remain so.”

“The US companies have been part of these projects from the beginning and we are proud and pleased to continue to be partners with Azerbaijan,” Cekuta said. “The US has been supporting the development of oil and gas resources of Azerbaijan and elsewhere in Caspian basin since early 1990s.”

“The importance of development of these hydrocarbon resources [in Azerbaijan] and the role they play in international security picture have been recognized by the US today,” he said. “This reality was purely demonstrated in President Trump’s May 28th letter.”

A ceremony to sign a new contract on development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of oil and gas fields was held in Baku Sept. 14.

According to the new contract, the share of Azerbaijan’s profitable oil will be 75 percent, and bonus payments by foreign investors will reach $3.6 billion.

The initial ACG contract was signed in 1994.

Proven oil reserves of the ACG block near 1 billion tons.

The new ACG participating interests will be as follows: BP - 30.37 percent; AzACG (SOCAR) - 25 percent; Chevron - 9.57 percent; INPEX - 9.31 percent; Statoil - 7.27 percent; ExxonMobil - 6.79 percent; TP - 5.73 percent; ITOCHU - 3.65 percent; ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) - 2.31 percent.