Azerbaijan will support the extension of the OPEC+ agreement, if the decision is made, Azerbaijan's Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said today.
According to him, Baku always takes the fulfillment of undertaken international obligations extremely seriously and the OPEC+ deal is no exception.
"The stability of the oil market is in the interests of our country. This is why we joined this initiative. Time has shown that the Vienna agreement paid off. This is a great achievement," Shahbazov explained.
He recalled that the next OPEC meeting at the ministerial level will be held in Vienna in November 2017. "If we receive an invitation, we will certainly coordinate our participation with the country's leadership and consider the invitation,” RIA Novosti cited Shahbazov as saying.
The head of the 'Caspian Barrel' Center for Oil Research, Ilham Shaban, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that Azerbaijan managed to set a record for benefits from participating in the OPEC deal. "At the beginning of October, when Vladimir Putin met with King Salman, they voiced a very good for 9 months figure at a joint press conference - oil revenues of Russia and Saudi Arabia increased by $40 billion due to rising oil prices. It is an impressive figure for the countries, whose economy depends on oil, and speaking of Azerbaijan, the republic set a record among oil and gas exporters. As a result of 9 months, Azerbaijan's oil output recorded a decline of 8%, it is more than 15 million barrels - however, Azerbaijan's profit from the 'Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli' project was $5.1 billion last year, and it was $3.7 billion only for the first half of this year," he explained.
"That is, we can expect that by the end of 2017 revenues will exceed $6 billion, despite a decline of 8% of oil production, of course, if prices remain in the corridor of $55-60 per barrel until the end of the year. In this case revenues will be about 20% - and this is a very bright indicator of how Azerbaijan has benefited from the accession to the OPEC agreement," Shahban concluded.
