Statoil Azerbaijan transmits environmental experience

A two-day seminar on " Responses to oil spills ", organized by the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan and the company Statoil started.

As Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations Etibar Mirzayev told reporters, the first meeting was held in late October in the Days of Norway to Azerbaijan , which resulted in a draft national plan of operational measures to combat oil spills . The plan has not been involved ( developed and submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers ) , but the reduction of air emissions , oil spill prevention , the development of cleaning technologies are a priority of the Ministry in this area - he said .

According to the expert of the Association cleanest seas of Norway Lars Adam Brekke, in this country, too, there is no national plan , but there are strict regulations and legislation providing for the responsibility of local government authorities and for accidents at offshore wells . So , last week, on the continental shelf ( the developer - Statoil) of the North Sea there was a leak of 32 cubic meters of oil in winds of 80 knots ( 148.16 km) per hour. Despite this , experts were able to mobilize for regulatory 5:00 cope with the problem , without giving a spot to spread dangerous ecological features.

Organizers noted that the workshop is aimed at not " lecturing " the Azerbaijani side and giving her different faces of the rich experience of the north .

During the speeches were not mentioned cases of accidents on local fields , but the violation of environmental requirements in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea is not a rare phenomenon . Thus, according to Iranian media, off the coast of the country in September 2012, was collected 25 tons of Azerbaijani oil .

The case when fire engulfed number 90 exploration well drilled at a depth of 5868 meters in the north- east wing " Bulla Deniz " August 17 , the fire lasted 2 months , daily burnt to 3 million cubic meters of gas . Earlier in the flare block of fields " Azeri- Chirag- " burned about 6-7 million cubic meters , while the head of SOCAR Rovnag Abdullayev spoke about the minimum damage to the environment .

In Azerbaijan, there are some nominal regulators - the Code "On Land" , as well as the laws "On Environmental Protection ", " On Environmental Safety ", " On Protection of the air layers of the atmosphere ", "On specially protected natural territories and objects ." There is a National Program for Environment, approved in February 2003 , and the Plan of Action has the state oil company . Azerbaijan also signed 20 international conventions on environmental protection.

According to the chairman of the Committee to Protect the Rights of Oilmen Mirvari Gahramanli , MOE and SOCAR have environmental regulations , the oil company even has an environmental department , but SOCAR own mistress . This is a state monopoly in charge of the entire production cycle and environmental compliance at the same time . Control over its operations is nominal and ineffective - just last year, the Ministry of Ecology fined hundreds of thousands of manat , but until a single mechanism of government regulation appears, violations of environmental norms will be traditional and without organizational consequences - she believes. - 17D-