Azernews.Az

The 2008 budget of the State Oil Fund (SOFAZ), the entity that holds revenues from Azerbaijan`s oil exports, was amended by a presidential decree issued Friday.
The measure is due to the anticipated extra revenues from the implementation of oil and gas contracts, soaring world crude prices and amendments to this year`s state budget.
According to the decree, revenues of the Fund from the sale of Azerbaijan`s hydrocarbons increased to over 9.819 billion manats (over $11.8 billion) from the previous 3.473 billion manats. Proceeds from dividends on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) main export pipeline project and from management of SOFAZ`s assets increased accordingly to 104.8 million manats ($126.2 million) and to almost 148.9 million manats ($179.3 million).
The Fund`s spending on transfers to the state budget increased to 3.8bn manats ($4.57bn) from the previous 1.1bn manats. Its revenues rose to 10.144bn manats ($12.221bn) from the previous 3.609bn manats and expenditures - to 4.380bn manats ($5.277bn) from the previous 1.680bn manats.
The Azerbaijani President also approved the execution of the 2007 budget of SOFAZ. According to the decree, the revenues of the Fund were executed with a 1.886bn manat ($2.272bn), or 21.2% surplus, and expenditures - in the amount of 1.061bn manats ($1.278bn), or 4.9% less than projected spending.