Rosneft's Vice President Mikhail Leontyev said in an interview with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, commenting on the creation of a working group on fuel and energy cooperation within the framework of the Russian-Azerbaijani intergovernmental commission, that Rosneft and SOCAR have accumulated enormous industrial and human experience of cooperation.
"Who else can Rosneft cooperate with if not SOCAR?" he noted.
"Rosneft has a very strong, long-term relationship with SOCAR. Of course, like any enterprises producing in a market sector like the oil and gas industry, we are competitors who have our own interests, but this does not exclude cooperation," Rosneft's Vice President said.
The head of the Center for Oil Research, Ilham Shaban, in his turn, said that SOCAR and Rosneft have been actively developing cooperation since 2014, when an agreement to establish a joint enterprise was signed, and the potential for increasing cooperation between the companies of Russia and Azerbaijan in the energy sector is still high.
"Another Russian company LUKOIL is engaged in the Shah Deniz project, but currently it is a passive player. If we look at the market for the supply of oil equipment or other equipment, the bulk of it is purchased by Azerbaijani companies in the West, primarily in the US," Ilham Shaban said.
Earlier, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that a special high-level working group created within the framework of the intergovernmental commission will be dealing with the development of partnership in the energy sector.
