SOCAR and World Bank signed new grant agreement

The document was signed by the SOCAR president Natig Aliyev from the Azerbaijani side, and by the director of WB on Southern Caucasus Donna Dousett-Koirolo. N.Aliyev said that an important event is taking place in the economy of Azerbaijan and informed that the goal of the project is to stimulate attraction of private investments to utilization of directional gas in the part of the "Guneshli" oilfield situated in the shoal.

"Our gas reserves increase parallel with oil today. At the same time, oil and gas should be efficiently used because they are exhaustible. Wasting natural gas in large quantities to air will be prevented in the frame of the project signed by us. I would like to note that 1,6 million cubic meters of gas from the "Guneshli" oilfield and 8 thousand cubic meters of gas from the "Chirag" oilfield is wasted to air every year," said Aliyev.

Dousett-Koirolo said that various projects had been implemented in the direction of development of the oil-gas sector of Azerbaijan during the last 10 years. According to her words, SOCAR’s initiative to work with WB on the "Guneshli" project for investigating potential of carbon funding is one of the first projects of the bank in this field in Southern Caucasus.

The ambassador of Japan in our country Tadahero Abe informed that this grant allocated by his country will enable SOCAR to prepare all necessary documents and investigations in order for the project to be reviewed by the Carbon Fund and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

It should be noted that the project corresponds to Clear Development Mechanism formed in the frame of the Kyoto Protocol. That mechanism intends participation of developed countries in implementation of projects enabling reducing carbon emission in developing countries. The project will be prepared and asserted on the basis of the procedures determined by WB and UNFCCC.

APA