Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Oil giant BP has announced the appointment of its new head in Azerbaijan, a resource-rich South Caucasus republic where it is implementing a number of large-scale energy projects.

Gordon Birrell will succeed Rashid Javanshir as BP's Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey (AGT), with effect from November 15, BP Azerbaijan announced on Friday.

Gordon is currently Head of Safety and Operational Risk for BP's Production Division, responsible for driving improvements in BP's operating quality across the company's global Production Division.

Javanshir was given a new post in the company's head office, an oil and gas market source told the Baku-based Trend news agency.

Javanshir was a first Azerbaijani president of BP Azerbaijan. The scope of his activity included the company's entire operations in Azerbaijan, Georgia and operations on export to Turkey.

Prior to being appointed as the President of BP Azerbaijan, Javanshir served as the executive vice president of the company. He was responsible for all onshore operations in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) and the Shah Deniz gas project.

With 14-year of leadership experience in BP, he held various positions including exploration director, Amoco Caspian Sea, president of Amoco Inam Operating Company, president of three BP Amoco-operated PSAs -- Shah Deniz, Inam and Araz-Alov-Sharg, BP Group strategy development manager, based in London, vice-president for BP's Southern North Sea business in Aberdeen, chief executive officer of BTC Co., the BTC pipeline consortium, and vice-president of BP Azerbaijan for Onshore Operations.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at a recent cabinet meeting criticized BP, saying serious mistakes of the BP-operated international consortium, Azerbaijan International Operating Company, have led to a sharp decline in oil production on Azeri and Chirag fields, which are part of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli development. Aliyev said BP failed to meet the production target in 2009-12, which resulted in Azerbaijan's receiving $8.1 billion less in direct revenue.

A landmark agreement on developing the ACG fields was signed with 13 energy majors from eight countries in Baku in 1994. 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.

In response to the criticism, BP Azerbaijan said that the company is fully committed to Azerbaijan and working with the state oil company SOCAR to address the ACG production issues as quickly as possible.

According to SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev, reasons for the decline in ACG production are technical.

New appointments

Recently BP Azerbaijan announced new apointments in the company, regarding all of them as "planned". Spokesperson Tamam Bayatli said all the replacements had been planned carefully and for a long time, including the recent staff changes.

A new vice president on wells, Jim Cowie, was appointed at BP Azerbaijan on October 17. Cowie previously held a similar post in a BP project in the North Sea.

Cowie will succeed from November 15 Gary Christman, who became vice-president of the BP's Global Wells Institute.

Another vice president of BP Azerbaijan -- on export pipeline operations, Kemp Copeland, retired a week before Christman.

BP also announced the appointment of Craig Wiggs as the Vice President of Operations Midstream in Azerbaijan, effective from January 1, 2013.