SOFAZ's revenues from oil, gas fields hit $3.8 bn in 2020

3 December 2020 13:24 (UTC+04:00)

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By Ayya Lmahamad

Revenues of Azerbaijan's State Oil Fund from the major oil and gas fields amounted to $3.8 billion for the period of January-November 2020, the Fund has reported.

Of this, revenues from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of fields, which are the largest oil field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, amounted to $3.3 billion during the reported period.

Moreover, the fund’s revenues from the Shah Deniz field, which is among the world’s largest gas-condensate fields, amounted to $276 million during the eleven months of the year. In addition, revenues from the sale of condensate from Shah Deniz amounted to $205 million.

Commenting on revenues from the sale of natural gas and condensate at Shah Deniz field in November, the fund noted that the sale of condensate at Shah Deniz field occurs once a month, and the proceeds from the sales are transferred to the Fund only in 30 working days. Thus, due to the fact that condensate sales in October coincided with the end of the month and revenues from the sales were transferred to the Fund in the beginning of December, the fund’s revenues from the Shah Deniz gas field remained unchanged in November and same as last month, Azertag has reported.

Earlier it was reported that State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan sold funds in the amount of $495.5 million at foreign currency auctions in November 2020. In addition, the fund sold funds in the amount of around $6.6 billion at foreign currency auctions during the period of January-November 2020.

SOFAZ was established in December 1999 by the Presidential Decree and is a sovereign wealth fund of Azerbaijan, which accumulates and preserves the nation's oil and gas revenues for future generations. The fundamental mission of SOFAZ is to ensure intergenerational equality with regard to the country's oil wealth and to accumulate and safeguard the oil revenues for generations to come.

The Fund accumulates income from the sale of oil contracts, and in 2003 it started to make transfers to the state budget of Azerbaijan. As for now, SOFAZ contribution to the country’s GDP is over 80 percent.

The contract for the development of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil fields was signed on September 20, 1994 and entered into force in December. The contract for the development of ACG block was extended to 2050 in September 2017.

The shareholders in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli project are BP (operator, 30.37 percent), SOCAR (25 percent), American Chevron (9.57 percent), ExxonMobil (6.79 percent), Indian ONGC (2.31 percent), Japanese Inpex Corp. (9.31 percent), ITOCHU Oil (3.65 percent), Norwegian Statoil (7.27 percent) and Turkish TPAO (5.73 percent).

The contract on development of Shah Deniz gas field was signed in 1996. Shareholders of Shah Deniz project are: BP (operator, 28.8 percent), TPAO (19 percent), SOCAR (16.7 percent), Petronas (15.5 percent), LUKOIL (10 percent) and NICO (10 percent).

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Ayya Lmahamad is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AyyaLmahamad