The closure of the representative offices of РЎhevron Overseas Exploration Limited and Chevron Overseas Petroleum Azerbaijan Limited is a pure legal formality and will not impact on the continuation of operations carried out by РЎhevron in Azerbaijan, a source in Chevron Baku Representative Office informed Trend today.
The suspension of the activity of the two above-mentioned offices started from February 8, 2007. All claims and questions to the Company will be received within 60 days.
The American oil company is represented by РЎhevron Khazar Ltd in the project on the development of offshore bloc of fields Azeri-Chiragh-Gunashli (ACG). The closure of the two other representative offices of the Company does not refer to ACG Project, the source in the Company said.
The legal necessity in the closure of РЎhevron Overseas Exploration Limited and Chevron Overseas Petroleum Azerbaijan Limited was caused by the Company rejection to keep on carrying out work on a perspective offshore field, Absheron due to the detection of commercially-non-interesting volumes of hydrocarbons in it. The Company has already paid compensation to the Azerbaijan party in the person of SOCAR.
The parties to Absheron Project was ChevronTexaco of USA (the operator) - 30%, SOCAR - 50% and Total of France - 20%. The sum of expected investments to be put into the implementation of the above-mentioned project was $3-4 bln.