Baku, Azerbaijan, April 29
By Kheyraddin Nasirzade - Trend:
From early 2001 to April 1, 2019, revenues of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) as part of a project to develop the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) block of oil and gas fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea amounted to $140.45 billion, Trend reports with reference to SOFAZ April 29.
Since January 1 until April 1, 2019, as part of the ACG project, the fund’s revenues reached $2.24 billion.
Revenues from the sale of gas condensate produced at the Shah Deniz field in the first quarter this year amounted to $91 million. In total, since 2007, SOFAZ gas sales revenues from Shah Deniz field amounted to almost $2.51 billion.
A contract for development of ACG was signed in 1994. A new contract for development of the ACG block until 2050 was signed in Baku Sept. 14, 2017.
The ACG participating interests are 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.
SOFAZ was established in 1999 with assets of $271 million. As of the end of the first quarter this year, SOFAZ’s assets increased by 4.56 percent as compared to early 2019 ($38.515.2 billion) and amounted to $40.273.3 billion.
Based on SOFAZ's regulations, its funds may be used for the construction and reconstruction of strategically important infrastructure facilities, as well as solving important national problems.
The main goals of the State Oil Fund include accumulation of resources and placement of assets abroad in order to minimize the negative effect to the economy, prevention of "Dutch disease" to some extent, promotion of resource accumulation for future generations and support of current social and economic processes in Azerbaijan.