SOCAR vice president shares company's strategic plans

The Vice-President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) for strategic development, Tofiq Gahramanov, told Russian journalists about the company's plans.

"In 2010, there was a task to develop a comprehensive plan for the strategic development of SOCAR until 2025. We adopted a comprehensive development plan with the British auditing company PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2011," the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza cited Gahramanov as saying.
 

"The company has 7-8 key development trends which we set for ourselves. In the first place, there are gas projects. Azerbaijan's proven gas reserves stand at 2.5 trillion cubic metres. And, according to our president Ilham Aliyev, this gas will be enough for a hundred years," the vice-president of SOCAR said.

"Now we are developing the second phase of the Shah Deniz gas field, which is about 16 billion cubic meters. To supply this gas to Italy, three projects combined in the Southern Corridor are currently being worked out." The South Caucasus Corridor (Azerbaijan, Georgia ), TANAP (through Turkey to Greece) and TAP (Greece, Albania with access to southern Italy)," Tofiq Gahramanov noted.

"Gas projects are the number one trend. Of course, oil also remains a priority for Azerbaijan. We intend to prolong work at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) block. And, in addition, we will continue to produce oil not only in the deep parts of the Caspian Sea, but also in the shallow waters. The next strong trend is an investment in the down-stream sector [oil and gas processing – VK]," SOCAR's vice-president for strategic development summed up.