The meeting of the National Oil Committee of Azerbaijan was held

A meeting of the National Oil Committee of Azerbaijan dedicated to the past year's activities and the upcoming tasks was held in Baku under the chairmanship of the Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan Parviz Shahbazov on May 8. Chairman of the National Oil Committee, the Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan Parviz Shahbazov said that The Azerbaijan National Oil Committee was established in 2005. He highlighted the role of National Leader Heydar Aliyev in the Oil Strategy as Azerbaijan became a member of the World Petroleum Council. He said that the main task of the World Petroleum Council is to use hydrocarbon reserves globally for the sake of people's welfare and this is also the main target of Azerbaijan's energy course. “Hydrocarbon reserves and purposeful policies have provided regional development as a whole”, the Minister of Energy spoke about the importance of energy projects. He said that thanks to the political will of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mr. Ilham Aliyev, the Caspian region had a different position for its partnership in comparison with other energy centers in the world.

It was noted that 2.06 billion tons of oil has been produced and 746 million tons of this volume was extracted after regaining independence. About 770,000 barrels of oil is produced daily in Azerbaijan. The Minister of Energy Shahbazov said oil-related activities were implemented in several directions:

“Today we are also involved in the process of stabilization of oil prices, along with refinement of oil reserves and the supply of the oil industry investment. At the same time, we take measures to achieve oil production efficiency for reducing oil dependence on prices and to use of oil as a value-added product. At the same time, we try to introduce our country to the world as the place where the first oil production on the dry land and in the deep-sea and a number of innovations in the oil industry have occurred.”

The Minister stressed that great responsibility falls upon the National Oil Committee in terms of Baku’s getting necessary support for holding the 24^th World Petroleum Congress of “World Petroleum Council” in 2023, and gave appropriate instructions.

Then the report on the annual activity of the National Oil Committee was heard. The head of the Administration of the Management Committee Nazim Valiyev highlighted that the National Oil Committee represents our country`s interests in oil and gas sector at the “World Petroleum Council”, and spoke about the work done within the candidacy of Baku. 

Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Energy Elnur Soltanov noted that a candidate for the 24^th World Petroleum Congress will be determined by a secret ballot during the next meeting to be held in June 2019 in St. Petersburg, Russia. In addition to Azerbaijan, Canada, the UAE, Argentina and Kazakhstan are also among the candidate countries. At the meeting, the sides discussed the publicity activities done for getting support of the member states.

Other aspects of future activities of the National Oil Committee were also discussed at the meeting.