ECONOMY
SOCAR increases share in Turkish joint venture
Baku, July 7 (AZERTAC). Azerbaijan`s state oil company SOCAR has signed a deal to buy 23.98% of Aksoy Holding`s share in the SOCAR-Turcas joint venture in Turkey.
The relevant documents are being prepared by the Turkish state bodies, SOCAR reported on its website.
Before the agreement was signed, SOCAR already owned the controlling package of shares in SOCAR-Turcas, with 51%. The new acquisition will take SOCAR`s share in the joint venture to 74.98%.
SOCAR-Turcas also owns Petkim holding, the largest petrochemical company in Turkey.
In a decree dated 2 July 2011, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev approved amendments to the production sharing agreement between SOCAR and nine international oil companies on the development of the Azeri, Chirag and Guneshli offshore fields.
Under the amendments, SOCAR is given preferential treatment in increasing its shares in the consortium.
SOCAR intends to buy 1.6461% of the shares of operator British Petroleum in the project. BP in turn bought out Devon Energy`s 5.63% share in ACG last year.
Before the amendments, the PSA set out SOCAR`s right to sell part of its share in ACG, but did not envisage the preferential right of the company to buy some of the shares of another project participant.
ACG is Azerbaijan`s major oil field, producing 300.4m barrels of oil in 2010 and 70.74m barrels in the first quarter of 2011.