In quarter 1, 2015 incomes of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) from sale of profitable oil and gas of the state totaled $2,159,345,000, a source from SOFAZ told Turan.
Only $79.6 million of profit was received from the gas projects or implementation of the Shah Deniz Phase 1 project. The low gas profit this year (as compared to quarter 1, 2014 the profit dropped by 48%) is accounted for growing costs for implementation of the Shah Deniz Phase 2 project. According to BP-Azerbaijan company, from January to March 2015 total costs for the Shah Deniz project reached $1.2 billion (growth by 32.6%), of which operating costs totaled $0.1 billion ($0.12 billion in quarter 1, 2014) and capital outlays – $1.1 billion ($0,785 billion).
SOFAZ’s incomes from the oil contracts totaled $2,079,745,000 or 96.3% of earnings from the hydrocarbons sale.
However, the past several years SOFAZ receives income from sale of oil from seven production sharing agreements (PSA). Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) project is the biggest one among them – in quarter 1, 2015 it made a profit of $2,065,000,000. The remaining projects made only $10,245,000. For the first time Surakhani Oil Operating Company (develops onshore bloc Surakhany) failed to pay the profit to the Azeri side. The paid profit of such operating companies as Neftechala Operating Company, Absheron Operating Company AND Bahar Energy Operating Company (paid $145,000, $500,000 and $900,000) did not even reach $1 million.
The peak profit from the ACG was about $19.4 billion in 2011. Last year the profit decreased to $15.1 billion. This year with the current oil prices the incomes of SOFAZ from ACG will total about $8 billion.
