Azernews.Az

By Nigar Abbasova

Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO), the national oil company of Turkey, has so far invested more than $10 billion in Azerbaijan.

TPAO CEO Besim Sisman announced about this while talking to Bloomberg HaberTurk, further adding that TPAO’s revenue from investments in Azerbaijan makes up the main portion of the income of the Corporation and these projects are most profitable.

He also said that the Corporation is about to reduce its investments abroad due to decline in oil prices, noting that TPAO has already called off its projects in Libya because of the unstable situation in the country and the corporation is now closing down its office in the country.

“We intend to save money because of decline in oil price. It’s true, our investments are sustainable. But we reduced investments in additional projects. Domestic investing is not reduced”, Shishman clarified.

He added that investments in Iraq and Russia will be maintained. Saying that the Corporation invested some $1.5 billion in the drilling of six wells in the Black Sea, he mentioned that TPAO continues searching for oil and drilling wells in the area.

The company maintains business in certain countries to ensure demand for Turkey's crude oil and natural gas. The company earlier announced it will spend $1,691 billion in oil and natural gas exploration and production projects in Turkey, Azerbaijan and other countries.

Next year the company is expected to invest $243 million in natural gas exploration in Turkey as it aims to increase the yearly production volume to 28.5 million barrels in 2017.

TPAO participates in four projects in Azerbaijan, particularly the development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli block of oil fields, where it owns 6.75 percent of shares, Shah Deniz gas condensate field development (19 percent) and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (6.53 percent).

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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