The production sharing contract was signed in Baku by Rovnag Abdullayev, president of Socar, and Rashid Javanshir, president of BP Azerbaijan, as visiting BP CEO Robert Dudley looked on.
Under the 30-year PSC, BP Exploration Caspian Sea will be the operator of the block with a 50% interest and Socar will hold the other 50%.
The block lies about 125 km (78 miles) southeast of Baku and covers an area of about 1,100 square kilometers. The unexplored block has a deep water section with a depth of about 650-800 meters and a reservoir depth of about 7,000 meters.
"We in BP very much hope that the combination of our leading technology and expertise with Azerbaijan's experience and potential will lead to new discoveries in the Caspian," Dudley said.
The signing of the agreement had originally been scheduled for July but was postponed after the announcement that Dudley was replacing former CEO Tony Hayward in the aftermath of the Macondo oil spill in the US Gulf of Mexico.
BP has interests in three other major projects in Azerbaijan. It owns a 25.5% stake in the Shah Deniz gas project and a 34.1% stake in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil project, both in the Caspian Sea.
It is also the main shareholder in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline company that transports oil to Turkey.
China Chemical Weekly: http://news.chemnet.com/en/detail-1411716.html
