Presentation of Gazprombank held in Baku

A presentation of Gazprombank (GPB) was held in Baku today, the First Vice-President of GPB, Alexander Kaznacheyev, presented the opportunities of the Russian oil and gas giant Gazprom's bank in Azerbaijan, the correspondent of the Vestnik Kavkaza reports.

First of all, he said that the key element of the bank's strategy is corporate business. "The development of corporate business is a priority for us, not only in Russia, but also in the CIS countries, including in Azerbaijan. The second priority is the investment business, the third direction is the retail business," Alexander Kaznacheev said.

According to the first vice-president of Gazprombank, GPB's loan portfolio consists of investments in metallurgy and the oil industry. "Working with SOCAR has brought us success in the oil and gas sector. Gazprombank has been paying attention to Azerbaijan in the last two years, we are a member of the Russian-Azerbaijani Business Council - this platform allows us to discuss trade, economic and investment cooperation, and further develop mutual business," he stressed.

"Today, all the countries that have been affected by the oil price crisis have returned to modernization, and Gazprombank is ready to offer Azerbaijan the most advanced technologies,  which will present Azerbaijani products at the highest level in the world markets," Alexander Kaznacheev noted.

Speaking of relations with SOCAR, he recalled that relations with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan have been built for years. "We have a unique project 'SOCAR Polymer'. The conditions in Azerbaijan allow us to implement the largest global projects. The next project SOCAR GPC will be a more ambitious," Gazprombank's first vice president concluded.

Answering the questions of Vestnik Kavkaza, Alexander Kaznacheev said that Gazprombank has vast experience in terms of organizing financing for oil and gas projects. "We also brought here our industrial enterprises with advanced technologies in the field of engineering products, products for oil and gas chemistry and information technologies. Of course, we want to offer the Azerbaijani market our advanced technologies of the Gazprombank group's enterprises," he stressed.

Speaking about the SOCAR Polymer project, he said that the project is under construction. "With the total limit for SOCAR of $2 billion, we allocate for financing SOCAR Polymer a little less than $500 million. According to the construction schedule, the work is being carried out in a well planned manner and we are quite pleased," Alexander Kaznacheev said.

As for the SOCAR GPC gas processing plant, they are preparing documentation for the organization of its financing. "Three banks are nominated for being financial consultants. We are actively communicating with our Chinese counterparts, because they are expected to provide a fairly large share of financing. The Chinese are considered as key consumers of the products, since the project will be export-oriented. I hope it will be as successful as SOCAR Polymer," the first vice-president of Gazprombank summed up.