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Azerbaijan posts a drop in extractive industry

31 March 2009 15:36 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vugar Israfilov â€“ APA-Economics. Azerbaijanâ€™s extractive industry output dropped by 2.6% as against the same period last year, said the State Statistical Committee.
According to the official data as at March, output reached AZN 1 632.216 million in value, compared to AZN 3 028.241 a year ago.

In absolute terms (without taking into account the relative prices), output in the mining industry fell by 86%.
The main reason is a fall in AIOCâ€™s production and low oil prices.

For example, in January-February 2009 AIOC cut production by 3.6% or 6 million tons. At the same time, the volume of gas production by AIOC increased by 34.1% on the same period last year to 1 961.4 million cubic meters.

Products	January-February 2009	Compared to January-February 2008 (%)	Finished products as of 01.03.2009
Crude oil and gas extraction
Crude oil (thousand tons)	7 343,7	96,4	160,2
Natural gas including associated gas (million cubic meters)	3 797,3	98,9	-
among them, for sale	3 103,4	118,4	-
Other mining sectors
Gravel, crushed stone, river stone (thousand tons)	365,7	111,0	106.9
Limestone for construction, (thousand tons)	101,9	104,5	1,4
Salt (tons)	557,4	82,8	512,5

For the January-February 2009, SOCAR increased oil output by 0.33%, year-on-year, to 1 433 million tons. SOCAR boosted gas production by 53.9% to 1 344 million cubic meters.
The share of extractive industries in the national economy is 61%. One in 4 workers in industry is employed by the extractive industry in Azerbaijan.