Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan’s state energy firm Socar will now be able to buy other companies’ stakes in the production sharing agreement on the country’s giant Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) oil field in the Caspian Sea, as the Azerbaijani parliament passed relevant legislation Friday.

Vice-Speaker Valeh Alasgarov, who chairs the parliamentary committee for energy, said that "in risky times", Socar’s stake in the ACG project has been financed by other companies. In 1995-2004, foreign energy firms spent $784 million in ACG capital expenditure and $102.2 million in operating expenditure for the purpose. Afterwards, Socar funded its stake on its own.

"Now, due to the increase in financial resources, Socar is in talks with other companies seeking to sell their stakes in the ACG project," Alasgarov said. "These talks are about to end successfully and, with agreements to be signed [soon], Socar will increase its stake in the PSA to 11.6461 percent from the current 10 percent."

Socar is seeking to buy 1.6 percent of British oil major BP’s stake in the ACG project, half of the share that Devon Energy earlier sold to BP. The new breakdown of ACG participating interests will have to be approved by the Azerbaijani parliament.

Azerbaijan signed an agreement on tapping the ACG field, called "the Contract of the Century", with the world’s energy majors in 1994. ACG shareholders are: BP (operator - 37.4%), Chevron (11.3%), Socar (10%), Inpex (11%), Statoil (8.6%), ExxonMobil (8%), TPAO (6.7%), Itochu (4.3%) and Hess (2.7%).

The vice-speaker said Socar would continue holding talks in the future with ACG shareholders considering to sell their shares.

Alasgarov added that discussions on buying larger stakes will also be held on other major energy projects.