BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 12
By Anastasia Savchenko – Trend:
During the period when Heydar Aliyev was the president, Azerbaijan’s proven oil reserves doubled while proven gas reserves tripled, First Vice-President of the Azerbaijani State Oil Company SOCAR, academician Khoshbakht Yusifzade said in an interview toXalq newspaper, Trend reports.
The first vice-president also stressed that before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijani oilmen, conducting effective exploration in the offshore sectors of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia, discovered more than 350 offshore deposits.
“The issue of developing hydrocarbon reserves in Azeri, Chirag and deep-water part of Gunashli oil fields required an improvement in the financial and economic situation in our country,” Yusifzade added.
The first vice-president drew attention to the fact that the main volume of the oil and gas in the country is extracted from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli and Shah Deniz fields.
“Some 70,000 tons of oil and 36 million cubic meters of gas are produced in the fields per day,” Yusifzade said.
"Since the beginning of development, 498 million tons of oil and 164 billion cubic meters of gas have been produced from the Azeri, Chirag, Gunashli fields," the first vice-president added.
Yusifzade also stressed that in accordance with Heydar Aliyev’s decree, September 20 is celebrated as the Day of Oil Workers in Azerbaijan.
The Contract of the century signed in Baku on September 20, 1994, among 13 big oil companies specializing in oil production representing eight countries is a large-scale international agreement on joint development of three oil fields - Azeri, Chirag and deepwater Gunashli - in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, which, due to its great importance, was called the "Contract of the Century".
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