Azernews.Az

Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR should step up control over the operations on the major Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of offshore oil fields being developed by an international consortium, Energy Minister Natig Aliyev said Monday.

Aliyev told journalists that all the remarks regarding the project recently made by the Azerbaijani president about a decline in production on the BP-operated Caspian fields are fair. Aliyev said that if the partners developing the fields are unable to match actual production with planned output volumes, "this indicates that there is a problem".

Specialists and scholars should jointly analyze the situation to determine the causes and solutions to the problem, Aliyev said.

He added that there is no threat to the activity of foreign companies in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev criticized BP at a cabinet meeting last Wednesday, saying crude mistakes of the international consortium that it operates, Azerbaijan International Operating Company, have led to a sharp decline in oil production on Azeri and Chirag fields, which are part of the ACG development, the largest oil fields in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian. According to President Aliyev, BP failed to meet the production target in 2009-12, which resulted in Azerbaijan's receiving $8.1 billion less in direct revenue.

ACG participating interests are: BP (35.83%), SOCAR (11.65%), Chevron (11.27%), Inpex (10.96%), Statoil (8.56%), ExxonMobil (8%), TPAO (6.75%), Itochu (4.3%), and Hess (2.72%). Hess has sold its share in the project to India's ONGC, and the transaction will be completed in the first quarter of 2013.