BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 28. The payments of Equinor to Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR amounted to $514.7 million in 2021, as compared to $243.7 million in 2020, thereby doubling the payment year-on-year, Trend reports citing Equinor.
The company paid $0.3 million to Azerbaijan’s State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) and $38.2 million to the country’s Main Tax Office.
The company invested $124 million in Azerbaijan in 2021, while its revenues stood at $304 million.
Azerbaijan is one of Equinor’s largest and longest-standing international commitments. It has been operating here since 1992 and is one of the largest foreign investors.
Today Equinor has an interest in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) oil field, as well as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline—which runs from the Azerbaijan capital of Baku to the south Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.
On 30 May 2018 Equinor and SOCAR signed a Risk Service Agreement related to the appraisal and development of the Karabagh oilfield and a Production Sharing Agreement for the Ashrafi-Dan-Ulduzu-Aypara (ADUA) area in the Caspian Sea.
Equinor and SOCAR hold equal shares in both projects. The Karabagh oilfield is located 120 kilometres east of Baku, close to the SOCAR operated Shallow Water Gunashli (SWG) field and the BP operated Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field. In December 2019, Equinor started drilling the KPS-4 appraisal in water depth of approximately 180 meters. In March 2020, Equinor and SOCAR confirmed oil discovery in the Karabagh field. To operate the licence, Equinor and SOCAR established a 50-50 joint operating company.
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