In 2012 Azerbaijan"s oil production declined, oil incomes went down

Turan agency's analysts believe that Azerbaijani President's statement at the government's session was more positive, than reality itself. In 2012 the country faced many problems and some goals have not been achieved. Therefore, it would have been better to speak about the problems and inform the society about the forthcoming tasks for year 2013. However, neither President of State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), nor chairman of Board of Azerenerji company or President of the newly-created State Company for Renewable Power was given a word at the session. Instead President has briefly described everything for them.

He did not say how much oil and gas was produced in the country. Oil production went down against 2011. According to the statement made by SOCAR President in December 2012, the country produced 43.9 million tons of oil and the oil production went down by 1.7 million tons. According to the SOCAR statistics (during 11 months, 2012), the oil production did not exceed 43 million tons and the production decline totaled 2.6 million tons.

On the other hand, the main problem in 2012 was a very high pace of production decline on the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) offshore oil fields. At the government session in October 2012 President accused BP company of the production decline and the country's losses that exceeded $8 billion during several years. However, after three months everything has changed. What has happened? If everything is so good, then why the ACG consortium's budget has not been approved by the Managing Committee yet? The reason is that the sides have not made a decision on the program of the forthcoming operations and the costs. If this is a case, then how can production on ACG stabilize in 2013? New operation wells have not been drilled yet. Putting of the new wells into operation will take minimum 4-5 months and during this period the production will inevitably decline on the contract area.

The State Agency for Alternative Power was established in the country under the Ministry of Industry and Energy in 2009. On June 1, 2012 the second state company was created in the country on the basis of the agency. However, its regulations have not been approved yet. In 2012 the agency created the hybrid park, but it cannot launch it, because of the problems with Azerenerji company, the state monopolist of power distribution and transportation. Azerenerji builds small hydraulic power stations, which belong to the alternative types of power.

In 2012 Azerbaijan's oil incomes started going down. The information about oil revenues is not available. However, we know that they went down by about $3 billion against 2011.-0---