Azernews.Az

By Ayya Lmahamad

The Azerbaijani State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) revenues from the country’s major oil and gas fields amounted to $982.6 million in the first three months of 2021, SOFAZ has reported.

The Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of fields, which are the largest oil field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, accounted for $953.4 million of this revenue.

The fund’s revenues from the Shah Deniz field, which is among the world’s largest gas-condensate fields, amounted to $29.1 million in January- March.

Earlier it was reported that SOFAZ sold funds in the amount of $1.4 billion at foreign currency auctions in the first three months of the year.

It should be noted that the fund's revenues from the country’s major oil and gas fields amounted to $3.8 billion in 2020, with Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) accounting for $3.5 billion of this revenue and Shah Deniz for $293.9 million.

SOFAZ was established in December 1999 by the presidential decree and is a sovereign wealth fund of Azerbaijan, which accumulates and preserves the nation's oil and gas revenues for future generations. The fundamental mission of SOFAZ is to ensure intergenerational equality with regard to the country's oil wealth and to accumulate and safeguard the oil revenues for generations to come.

The fund accumulates income from the sale of oil contracts, and in 2003 it started to make transfers to the state budget of Azerbaijan. As for now, SOFAZ contribution to the country’s GDP is over 80 percent.

The contract for the development of the ACG oil fields was signed on September 20, 1994, and entered force in December. The contract for the development of the ACG block was extended to 2050 in September 2017.

The shareholders in the ACG project are BP (operator, 30.37 percent), SOCAR (25 percent), MOL (9.57 percent), INPEX (9.31 percent), Equinor (7.27 percent), ExxonMobil (6.79 percent), TPAO (5.73 percent), ITOCHU (3.65 percent), ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) (2.31 percent).

The contract on the development of the Shah Deniz gas field was signed in 1996. Shareholders of Shah Deniz project are: BP (operator, 28.8 percent), TPAO (19 percent), AzSD (10 percent), SGC Upstream (6.7 percent), PETRONAS (15.5 percent), LUKOIL (10 percent) and NICO (10 percent).

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Ayya Lmahamad is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AyyaLmahamad

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