Indicator

The 20th annual exhibition and conference called Oil, Gas, Oil Refinery and Petroleum Chemistry of the Caspian (Caspian Oil&Gas) held last week reaffirmed Azerbaijan's reputation as an attractive country for investments and a stable and reliable partner in the Caspian Region.  

The first Caspian Oil&Gas exhibition was held in 1994, on the eve of the signing of the Contract of the Century. It opened up Azerbaijan and its opportunities for foreign investors. Each year, the exhibition and an accompanying conference brings together important players of the global energy sector, including heads of large companies, ministers in charge of the oil and gas sector and representatives of international financial organizations and banks. 

On the whole, over 5,600 companies from 70 countries of the world took part in the Caspian Oil&Gas exhibition in the past 20 years. 

As many as 386 companies from 28 countries of the world participated in the 20th international exhibition called Oil, Gas, Oil Refinery and Petroleum Chemistry of the Caspian, organized by the British company ITE and its partner in Azerbaijan, ITECA Caspian. The event was held at three pavilions of the Baku Expocentre, as well as in the open area in the vicinity. In comparison to the year 2012, the area on which the exhibition was held increased by 22 per cent and 20 per cent of its participants were presented for the first time. 

These statistics show the importance of the event for the region, something that was emphasized by President Ilham Aliyev at the opening ceremony. 

"The exhibition has not lost its significance over the past 20 years. Just the contrary, its importance has further increased. Despite the fact that the main oil and gas contracts have already been signed, for many years foreign companies have been working successfully in Azerbaijan and the importance of the exhibition is increasing. Traditional greeting messages sent by the US president and the UK prime minister once again confirm the great importance of the exhibition," Aliyev said. 

"The exhibition has provided great support and has had a tremendous importance for the development of the oil and gas sector in Azerbaijan. When the first exhibition was held in 1994, there was not sufficient information in the world about Azerbaijan as an oil rich country. The companies that worked in the oil sector in the world knew that Azerbaijan is an ancient oil-rich country but there was not sufficient information about the actual potential and plans for our country's future development. At this jubilee event I would like to extend my particular gratitude to all the companies that are working in Azerbaijan, and particularly those that believed in us in the first years, the mid-1990s, invested in Azerbaijan and encouraged our economic development. Azerbaijan will continue to work successfully and cooperate with its strategic partners," the president said. 

While initially the main focus was on the development of energy resources of the Caspian, in particular, in Azerbaijan, in recent years greater attention is paid to transporting oil and gas, providing energy security and cooperation in the area of ecology. 

This exhibition and the conference were not an exception - discussions were mainly focused on the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor, in particular, the role of the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline project (TANAP). 

Aliyev said that the TANAP project is the major condition for the successful implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor. 

"The launch of TANAP means that the Southern Gas Corridor will be implemented. As you know, discussions on the Southern Gas Corridors have been under way for many years now. However, no actual steps have been taken. We saw that unless Azerbaijan assumed the main responsibility, these negotiations would probably continue for another couple of years. Therefore, Azerbaijan assumed this great responsibility. Currently, there are no obstacles to the implementation of the TANAP project," the president said. 

Aliyev said that Azerbaijan, transit countries and European consumers insist on the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor. "At the beginning of the year 2011, Azerbaijan and the EU signed a memorandum on strategic partnership regarding the Southern Gas Corridor. This memorandum is being successfully implemented. The project will introduce new nuances into the European energy map, that is to say, we will compile the energy map together. We are certainly perfectly aware of the entire responsibility. With a sense of pride we can say that we are delighted that the decisions that are being undertaken in Azerbaijan, including the negotiations held on the sidelines of these exhibitions and the decision taken there, become milestones having global importance," the Azerbaijani leader said. 

Incidentally, the Caspian Oil&Gas exhibition often provided a venue for signing oil contracts. The agreement on the Shah Deniz oil deposit, signed in June 1997, is of particular importance in this respect. 

The 20th exhibition followed the tradition - on the opening day, the Azerbaijani State Oil Company (SOCAR) declared the signing of a contract on the construction of a new drilling device. The agreement was signed between the CDC (92 per cent of which is owned by SOCAR) and the Singaporean Keppel Fels. SOCAR President, Rovnaq Abdullayev said that "this is a unique device which will carry out drilling at the sea depth of 1,000 metres and will drill wells at the record depth of 12,000 metres."

"We need this drilling device to continue drilling on the Umid gas field and to drill wells at the Babek [Babak] field where resources are twice as much as on Umid," Abdullayev said. 

He noted that the Socar working group is also conducting talks on the construction of the second 6th generation mobile floating drilling and it is possible that the construction will proceed in parallel. 

He said that on average, the construction of a single 6th generation mobile floating drilling is estimated at 1 billion USD. 

A lot of attention has been paid to the presentation of Azerbaijani companies the number of which is increasing at the exhibition every year. BP has been running for the second consecutive year a Meet the Buyer event. As part of this event, over 90 Azerbaijani companies managed to offer their products and services to foreign companies and find partners. 

Next year Baku will host guests at the Caspian Oil&Gas, as well as the CIS Oil and Gas Summit. This representative forum is traditionally held in Paris. Its sessions have also been held in London, Dubai and St Petersburg. In April 2014, Baku will host it for the first time. Coupled with earlier forums on the dialogue of civilizations, the Davos Forum and other representative events, the CIS Oil and Gas Summit will host guests from around the globe in the city where the oil era was born.