Since early this year it was announced that French Total company has decided to sell its share in the big Azerbaijani project Shah-Deniz and the South Caucasian gas pipeline. The deal has not been closed yet, but media writes that the Turkish state-run BOTAS pipeline company has taken notice of the share.
Azerbaijani journalists were interested why SOCAR is not interested in increasing its share in this very important project for the country.
SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev told journalists yesterday that last year SOCAR was involved in many projects. The company needs funds to implement the projects, but for some objected reasons they are limited. For this reason in some projects the Azerbaijani government helps SOCAR and in others the government acts through the Oil Fund.
SOCAR has already increased its share in the Shah-Deniz project at the end of last year at the expense of purchase of part of Statoil’s share.
SOCAR purchased 6.7% shares of Statoil for about $1 billion.
