Industry and Energy

Home page

Industry and Energy

SOCAR delivers a presentation Fitch Ratings assessment

29 July 2009 17:14 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Nijat Mustafayev - APA-Economics. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) has today held a presentation in connection with Fitch Ratingsâ€™ assessment to assign ratings.

SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev spoke about the companyâ€™s role in the economy of Azerbaijan, saying that it operates as a commercial entity despite the fact that it is wholly state-owned.

Speaking about the successes of companies, he mentioned large international projects in Turkey and Georgia.

â€œAfter SOCAR acquired Turkeyâ€™s largest petrochemical company Petkim, the latter managed to run on profit amid the global crisis due to its skilled management,â€ he added.

He noted that SOCAR have to date invested $400 million in the Georgian economy.

According to him, SOCAR has good cooperation with Fitch Rating and Moody’s.

Rovnag Abdullayev said an agreement was reached on with Fitch last year and with Moody’s this year. He also expressed confidence that Fitch would assign relevant ratings after consultation with representatives.

SOCAR President added that Azerbaijan was one of the major parties to ensure the energy security of Europe and underlined the importance of the Southern Corridor project.

He added that at present Azerbaijan exports oil and gas in several directions such as Russia, Iran, Georgia, Turkey and Greece.

SOCAR has begun to exploration and drilling work in the new structures to raise proved gas reserves to 5 trillion cubic meters.

After that, SOCAR Officer Enver Gasimov, held a presentation on the structure, performance, projects of SOCAR for Fitch Ratings representatives.