Azernews.Az

By Gunay Camal

Saudi Arabia very much appreciates Azerbaijan’s contribution to the agreement to reduce oil production, which was reached in December 2016 in Vienna, said Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih.

The minister made the remark at a meeting with Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Natig Aliyev in Baku on April 26.

Al-Falih said that Azerbaijan is one of the countries that have fulfilled their obligations on oil output cut better than others. The minister emphasized that Azerbaijan reduced oil production to a greater extent than it undertook.

“We have common values; Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia are very pragmatic with regard to oil production in the long term. We want stability not only for producers, but also for oil consumers,” added the minister.

In late 2016, OPEC members decided to cut oil production to stabilize the global oil market. 11 non-OPEC countries, including Azerbaijan, agreed to curtail oil output jointly by 558,000 barrels per day within the OPEC deal. The agreement was signed for the first half of 2017, with the possibility of extension.

The participation of Azerbaijan in joint oil production cuts is defined at 35,000 barrels per day. Prior to the landmark deal, the volume of production in the country was at the level of 37.72 million tons of oil, while daily output stood at 829,100 barrels.

The Saudi minister also offered the Azerbaijani side to jointly invest in third countries.

The offer was well perceived by Energy Minister Natig Aliyev, who stressed that Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia have great potential.

Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR can participate in the projects in Saudi Arabia, while in its turn Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Aramco company can take part in the projects in Azerbaijan, Aliyev said.

"We will continue to discuss the possibility of cooperation between SOCAR and Saudi Aramco in the projects in Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia, as well as the possibility of joint activity in Turkey," Aliyev said.

"Following the meeting, we can prepare an agreement in which we will include all the issues and spheres that we want to develop,” the minister said, adding that an intergovernmental agreement between Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan can be signed in this regard.

Aliyev stressed that Azerbaijan has big plans for the development of production in the petrochemical industry, in particular polypropylene.

In this regard, Aliyev called Saudi Arabia for participating in the petrochemical projects.

SOCAR GPC, a gas processing and petrochemical complex of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, will be commissioned in Garadagh, 15 km south of Baku in January-March 2022. The cost of the GPC project is approximately $4 billion.

As part of his visit to Baku, the Saudi minister already met with President Ilham Aliyev, who said that the visit will give new dynamics to the development of energy cooperation between the two countries.

He is also expected to meet with Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Huseyn Bagirov, Executive Director of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan Shahmar Movsumov and President of the Azerbaijani state company SOCAR Rovnag Abdullayev.

The visits to Bibiheybat and Sangachal were also included to the program.

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