Azerbaijan, Baku / corr Trend V.Sharifov / Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan will soon find common ground for the division of the Caspian into national sectors and the development of the disputable field Kapaz.
" Baku and Ashgabat will reach an agreement sooner than a five-lateral consensus among the Caspian littoral countries," Rauf Huseynov, an analyst of Argus Media.
By mid-October 2007 Tehran will host a summit of the Caspian littoral countries which plans to sign a declaration. The document has been developed by the Foreign Ministers of the Caspian littoral countries. This experience has shown that the Caspian countries will easily find a common ground regarding the bilateral contracts.
The summit in Tehran will be the second one held, the first being held in Ashgabat in 2002. It was then agreed by the Presidents that such high profile meetings would become an annual event. However, the next summit did not take place and over that period the leaders in Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan changed.
Before the USSR collapsed, the Caspian Sea's legal status was based on Soviet-Iranian agreements of 1921 and 1940. Currently, lack of the parameters of delimitation of the oil and gas prospective fields amongst the littoral countries has resulted in the necessity for a new legal status of the Caspian Sea based upon an agreement by all five littoral countries ( Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Iran).
The analyst does not exclude that Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan could reach an agreement on the terms of the Kapaz field development even without resolution of the Caspian status.
'The parties can establish either a joint company or a joint venture, and afterwards attract foreign investors to the project," he said.
Mineable reserves of Kapaz field are assessed at 50mln tons of oil. The field was discovered by the Azerbaijani oil workers during the USSR. During the Soviet Union the field had the name of 'Intermediate' as it is located at the midline between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan
The US company Chevron and German Wintershall take interest in the development of the Kapaz field.