In January-July of 2023, Azerbaijan imported more than 1.22 million tons of crude oil worth about $679 million, the special bulletin on foreign trade relations of the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan.
At the same time, oil imports from Russia amounted to 610.45 thousand tons, from Turkmenistan – 551.7 thousand tons, and from Kazakhstan – 59.69 thousand tons.
It should be noted that by the end of 2022, the State Statistics Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan recorded the import of 673.37 thousand tons of oil (an increase of 7.5 times from the indicator of 2021) for $450.93 million.
Neither the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan nor the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan in their annual reports indicated for what purpose oil imports were conducted.
It is possible that production at SOCAR’s fields has decreased (the State Oil Company does not disclose the volume of oil and gas production by Azneft in its quarterly reports – SOCAR’s production structure) and it is no longer able to provide the Baku refinery with raw materials at the previous levels.
Caspian Barrel
