Number of locals employed by BP in Azerbaijan reaches 87 pct
By Aynur Karimova
The number of locals employed by British BP in Azerbaijan has reached 87 percent, BP’s Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey Gordon Birrell announced at the graduation ceremony for students of the Gobustan Regional Training Centre on November 10.
BP participates in projects to develop the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli block of oil and gas fields, the Shah Deniz gas condensate field, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, and the South Caucasus gas pipeline.
Birrell noted that the company employs more than 2,900 Azerbaijani citizens, which comprises more than 87 percent of the qualified staff of BP in the country, and some of them occupy high positions at BP.
"This is important for future projects, and we will continue to work towards increasing the number of local staff. We intend to at least increase this figure to 90 percent by 2018, which is one of our major commitments. I also want to note that more than 15,000 jobs were created in Azerbaijan within the framework of the Shah Deniz-2 project," he added.
During the event, Azerbaijan and BP signed an agreement on cooperation for the training of the local workforce at the Gobustan Regional Training Center and a Memorandum of Understanding on an approved recruitment and appointment process.
BP to start surveying promising structures around Absheron peninsula
Later, Birrell told journalists that BP planned to start seismic surveys at potentially promising structures located in the shallow waters around the Absheron peninsula in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea in February-March 2016.
"We are very pleased that we have signed an agreement on this project with SOCAR,” he said. “We believe there are great opportunities for long-term cooperation on the project. We are already conducting the preparatory work. The initial seismic survey will begin in the contract area in February-March 2016.”
Birrell also noted that the company intended to finish interpreting and processing data obtained as a result of the seismic exploration by late 2016.
"Proceeding from the obtained results, we will be able to determine our next steps," Birrell stated.
The territory, according to the production-sharing agreement between SOCAR and BP to carry out development and exploration work in the peninsular waters, stretches along the southern part of Absheron and covers an area of some 1,900 square kilometers.
The sea depth in this area reaches 40 meters, while the depth of the potentially productive strata is 3,000-5,000 meters.
The share of BP and SOCAR in the agreement is 50 percent each.
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Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova
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