Within the Complex Actions Plan on Improvement of the Ecological Situation in Azerbaijan Republic for 2006-2010 approved by the order of the Azerbaijani Republic on September 28, 2006, SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) has prepared a number of purposeful measures to be taken in this direction, Trend reports referring to a message spread by SOCAR.
Particularly, SOCAR founded the new Ecology Department. The structure of the Department includes the Expedition Division, Laboratory Complex, equipped with up-to-date technologies, Landscape Rehabilitation and Soil Revegetation Division, and the Special Ecological Problems Monitoring Division.
The Department has a plant on revegetation of soils contaminated with oil and an industrial area. The capacity of the facility is 50 cubic meters per hour.
The location of a great number of oil facilities on the territory of the Absheron Peninsula has brought to the contamination of 33,3 thousand hectares of the territory of the region. Over 10,6 thousand hectares or 31,8% of the contaminated landscape falls at oil deposits of Balakhani, Surakhani, and Binagadi.
SOCAR Ecology Department has held a monitoring of these territories. On the basis of the monitoring, the department has prepared and then implemented a project on the revegetation of 1,1 hectares of the Oil and Gas Production Association (OGPA) Balakhanineft. Presently, the department is engaged in the revegetation of 2.7 hectares of the Production Association section.
In 2007, 126 hectares of the territories of Bibiheybat contaminated with oil and about 400 hectares of other territories of the Absheron Peninsula are expected to be revegetated. The Department has planned some large-scale projects, including those connected with the preparation of the ecological map of the Absheron Peninsula, cleaning industrial wastes, projecting, designing, and equipping with cleaning plants, cleaning the Boyul Shor Lake, etc.