HOPE FOR UMID HAS BEEN JUSTIFIED

"Umid" means "hope" in Azerbaijani. And, perhaps it is no accident that one of Azerbaijan's gas fields in the Caspian Sea was named Umid - expectations were high. And the field has fully justified the hopes of Azerbaijani geologists. On 24 November, the President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) announced that, following the drilling of the first exploration well in the new structure, its reserves have been estimated at a minimum of 200 billion cubic metres of gas and 30 million tons of gas condensate. Thus, it is the second largest gas field after Sah Daniz to have been discovered since Azerbaijan's independence.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who met the leadership of SOCAR on the same day, called the discovery "a great historic event". This is not just for the volume of reserves discovered. For the first time after a long hiatus, Azerbaijan conducted all drilling and exploration work on a major gas field completely independently. "In the early 1990s, we did not have great financial resources and depended on foreign investment. But we attracted foreign investment to Azerbaijan and have managed to fully satisfy our national interests," said the president.

Yes, the decision to drill at Umid at our own expense was risky, but the experience and knowledge of Azerbaijani geologists was the key to success. According to the president, this event is of great interest not only in Azerbaijan but also outside: "It also demonstrates that Azerbaijan has become a major gas-producing country. We have already become well-known worldwide as an oil-producing country. At the next stage - in the 21st century - Azerbaijan will have, and is already having, its say in the world as a gas-producing nation."

By the way, Umid may have even greater hydrocarbon reserves; this will be determined after the drilling of a second exploration well. But the discovery is not only significant from this point of view. The results from the first well in this field prove that another field, Babak, located lower in the same structure, is twice as big as Umid. That is to say if the reserves in Umid amount to 200 billion cubic metres, then in the Babak field they may reach 400 billion.

We can only continue to work with the same optimism, especially as political support for this new endeavour comes personally from President Ilham Aliyev. With his first-hand knowledge of the secrets of oil extraction, the head of state believes that the state oil company of Azerbaijan should develop fields, in particular Babak, independently. "I remember that, initially, these deposits were in the same block - Umid-Babak. Foreign companies also showed great interest in these fields. It is very good that we kept them and now we are doing all the work ourselves. Of course, we must do all the work in the Babak field. The discovery of Umid essentially leads on to the discovery of very large gas fields," said the head of state.

All this, naturally, will strengthen Azerbaijan's role on the world's energy map and will make the country a major supplier of gas. "On the whole, based on the results, I can confidently say that if we have 2 trillion cubic metres of proven natural gas reserves, we will also have a minimum of two trillion cubic metres of prospective reserves," said SOCAR's first vice-president.

The strengthening of Azerbaijan's export capacity is also underlined by BP's statement that in order to pump an additional 16 billion cubic metres of gas per year from the Sah Daniz-2 project, which involves the full-scale development of Azerbaijan's largest offshore gas condensate field, in Sah Daniz, it is planned to build a new pipeline worth $3 billion. According to BP Azerbaijan President Rashid Javanshir, the new export pipeline will be 400 km long and will stretch to the Azerbaijani-Georgian border. In Georgia, where two large compressors will be built, the new pipeline will connect to the existing South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP), which is currently being used to export gas from the first phase of development in Sah Daniz.

It is possible that in the future, following the launch of large new fields, in particular Umid, the number of export pipelines will increase even further. And, most importantly, Azerbaijan's economic significance in the region and the world will also increase.