After the discovery of oil fields, Baku became a special place, where various economic and political interests of international coalitions, industrial clans and leaders were concentrated and clashed. VK begins publishing chapters from the book by Ismail Agakishiev "History of the Baku Oil Industry and the Second Oil Boom (second half of the 19th century - beginning of the 20thcentury)" The book presents a historical analysis of the emergence and current state of the Azerbaijani oil industry.
By December 1990 the Department for Sea Exploration Drilling had 12 floating stations. They were produced in Russia. At the request of "Kaspmorneftegazprom" the construction of the new "Shelf-5" station was completed in 1990-1991. In a situation of political instability, foreign companies were afraid to invest in the economy of the republic. It was necessary to attract big international companies that could influence the establishment.
The first contact of this type was the visit to Baku of the head of the Scottish oil company Ramco in 1989. Steve Remp talked to the legendary oil worker Kurban Abbasov, who told him about the real prospects for oil production in Azerbaijan. Remp later remembered that "in 1989, before the fall of the Iron Curtain, the majority of the oil companies were focusing on Western Siberia. A common opinion was that the resources in Azerbaijan were exhausted; during the meeting with Azerbaijani specialists I realized that the Caspian Sea has vast unused resources."According to the estimate of the Soviet Oil experts, the richest oil and gas fields were located on the Apsheron Archipelago. Big fields were found in the deeper part of the Southern Caspian in the 1980s - Guneshli, Azeri and Chirag. Other fields were found in Darwin Bank, Pirallahy, Gurgandeniz, Chilov Adasy, Neft Dashlary, Gumdeniz and Bahar. All of them were explored in Soviet times and contain substantial resources of oil and gas. The prognosis of Azerbaijani experts about the existence of the hydrocarbon resources was confirmed with the discovery of the Azeri and Shahdeniz fields in 1988 and 1999 respectively. Remp shared the information he received in Azerbaijan with the leadership of British Petroleum. From this point on, foreign companies became interested in Caspian oil.
The Azerbaijani government trusted Remp to recommend foreign companies to enter into partnership with the Azerbaijani Republic in exchange for a certain percentage of the amount of the contract. Negotiations with the future signatories of the oil contract began already in 1990. The participants included the Azerbaijani government, the USSR Ministry of the Oil and Gas Industry, Amoco, the Alliance Oil Company, BP-Statoil, Unical, McDermott and Ramco. The Ministry of the Oil and Gas Industry of the USSR, together with the Council of Ministers of the AzSSR, decided to organize a tender to create a joint enterprise with Kasppromneft to explore and develop an Azeri oilfield discovered in 1987. Interested companies immediately started wide-ranging propaganda charity actions among the population of the republic.
New medical equipment and medicines were supplied, students were sent to foreign universities, local personnel were trained to work for future contracts. In June 1991 the tender was won by Amoco Oil Company, but Unical, McDermott, Ramco, Alliance and BP-Statoil were also invited to the project. The leadership of British Petroleum admitted that the victory of Amoco came as a surprise. The USSR did not have any legislation for the activity of foreign companies, so on July 5th 1991 the Supreme Council of the USSR approved a law on the foreign investments.
The second half of 1991 was a crucial time in the cooperation between Azerbaijan and international oil companies. On July 10th 1991 Boris Yeltsin became the president of Russia and in December that year, together with the presidents of Belarus and Ukraine, he signed the Belovezh Treaty that became that led to the dissolution of the USSR. In July 1991 Richard Stanmayer, head of American corporation Unical, came to Baku. He was "positively surprised by the level of technical knowledge of the Azerbaijani specialists." Stanmayer stressed that it was precisely the fame of Baku as an oil center that was the reason the Unical company became interested in it: "When it became known that "Kaspmorneftegaz" had organized a tender we were immediately excited about the idea of working in Azerbaijan, because we knew a lot about this oldest oil center and about the pioneers of Soviet oil extraction."
Stanmayer met with prime-minister Gasanov. The meeting was also attended by the head of Kaspmorneftegaz, K.A. Abbasov. The companies agreed to use the best technologies that guarantee minimal pollution. The leaders of the republic were interested both in the development of Caspian oil and in environmental protection. The main task of Azerbaijan was to create good business contacts with oil corporations, but to do it as an equal competitive partner. The advantage of Azerbaijan was the abundant resources and the long experience in oil extraction, qualified specialists and a good geographical location as a bridge between Europe and Asia.
