The fact that Rosneft and SOCAR have signed the agreement to create a joint venture at the Forum in Saint Petersburg shows that Russia and Azerbaijan enter a new level of cooperation in the oil and gas industry.
Caspian Barrel believes that by creating of a joint venture between the state oil companies on the parity basis Azerbaijan and Russia have once again demonstrated that they are able to work together on the mutually beneficial basis. This work will not limited by the territories of Azerbaijan and Russia.
On August 13, 2013 SOCAR and Rosneft signed the cooperation agreement during a working visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Azerbaijan. The document envisaged that if within six months the sides find mutually beneficial projects, they will sign the contract and create a joint venture in a parity basis to implement the project.
Therefore, the both companies needed some time to carefully study direction of the future cooperation to sign the final reading of the agreement. The direction has been chosen – the producing assets.
The Russian state oil company could be proud of the fact that soon its assets will include the item “offshore hydrocarbon production.”
For the first time since its established SOCAR will be able to have a chance to produce oil and gas outside of the country. SOCAR has received the similar requests from African, Latin American, Near East and Asian countries. But SOCAR tried to avoid them, because production outside of the capital demands a huge capital and involves high risk. With such a partner as Rosneft SOCAR will be able to start working in Siberia.
There is only one question remain – what assets did Rosneft take notice of in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea?
