Baku, Azerbaijan, April 22
By Sara Israfilbayova, Matanat Nasibova – Trend:
The 4th SOCAR International Caspian and Central Asia Downstream Forum on Trading, Logistics, Refining and Petrochemicals is underway in Baku on April 22, 2019, Trend reports.
The event is attended by about 300 representatives of the oil and gas sector of Azerbaijan, Europe and Central Asia including representatives of the biggest oil and gas companies, refineries, trading companies, ports, terminals, banks and analytical agencies.
The forum participants are discussing, among other issues, the development of energy sector of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan; the SOCAR oil refining and petrochemical cluster in Turkey; the latest refining technologies for refineries; regional gas projects; possible imbalances in the global hydrocarbon market in 2019; new fields in the region and their impact on trade flows and export routes; and Caspian and Central Asian oil in a global context.
Speaking at the event, First Vice President of Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company SOCAR Khoshbakht Yusifzade said that Azerbaijan supplied 506 million tons of oil to foreign markets so far, including 383 million tons transported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.
Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov spoke about the country’s biggest gas project, the Shah Deniz field. He said that as of today, 104.2 billion cubic meters of gas and 25.1 million tons of condensate were produced at this field including 9.1 billion cubic meters of gas in January-March this year.
In his turn, BP Azerbaijan Vice President Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli talked about the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) block of fields and noted that there are plans to extract 3 billion barrels of oil from the block until 2049. According to him, $36 billion have been invested in the development of the ACG block, and 3.5 billion barrels of oil have been produced.
Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Mukhtar Babayev spoke about the impact of industrial production on the environment. He said that great attention is paid to environmental protection in Azerbaijan.
The forum jointly organized by Baku Higher Oil School, SOCAR and the British company Confidence Capital Ltd will be held until April 25. The event participants will also visit the urea plant of SOCAR, SOCAR Polymer and the BP Sangachal terminal.
