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Socar News

05 Jul 2021

Report: SOCAR Says Platforms Safe after Fire Offshore

Illustration/ michalz86/Adobestock

Azerbaijan’s state energy company, SOCAR, said on Sunday its offshore gas platforms in the Caspian Sea were safe after media reports of a large fire in the area.Videos and photos published online showed smoke rising above the sea off the coast. Russia’s RIA news agency cited SOCAR as saying that an eruption of mud was the most likely reason for that, although it did not explain how it could cause a fire.“No incidents have happened at the offshore fields and industrial structures controlled by SOCAR…

19 Oct 2020

Philippe Named Commercial Director of Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore

Mathieu Philippe, Commercial Director of Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore (Photo: Bureau Veritas)

Mathieu Philippe has been appointed to the new position of Commercial Director – Marine at classification society Bureau Veritas. Returning to Paris, where he started his career in shipping, Philippe brings extensive experience in commercial ship operations, markets and management to Bureau Veritas. He reports to Marine & Offshore President Matthieu de Tugny, and leads the marine markets team, providing expertise and technology leadership across all major ship types, ship fuel and propulsion technology.With growing compliance requirements and demands for transparency…

06 Sep 2019

ASCO Ships Completes Pirshagi Wastewater Treatment Plant

More than 90 percent of the construction works of the Pirshagi Wastewater Treatment Plant, funded by the Government of Azerbaijan and the Korea Export-Import Bank, has been completed.According to Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company (ASCO), this facility is the first modern wastewater treatment plant in Azerbaijan developed on the basis of new technologies.Given that 400 m of the exhaust line of the Pirshagi Wastewater Treatment Plant was installed on land, and a part with a length of 1300 m – at the sea, a route along the sea bottom was determined in advance. ASCO specialized vessels carried out dredging operations and successfully completed their task.Dredging operations were carried out on the digging vessel “Muhandis B.

12 Jul 2019

U.S. Oil Makes it to Ukraine, a blow to Moscow

© RealPhotoItaly/Adobe Stock

U.S. crude exports are gaining traction in Europe as even Ukraine turns into a significant consumer of American barrels at the expense of Russian supplies amid heightened U.S. political pressure on Moscow and problems over contaminated Russian oil.Ukraine this month received its first ever barrels from the United States, according to Refinitiv Eikon flows data, as the tanker Wisdom Venture unloaded 80,000 tonnes of Bakken crude in Odessa on July 6 for the Kremenchug refinery,…

02 Jul 2019

Tanker Blast at Turkish Port Kills 1 Crewmember

An explosion at an LPG tanker killed one Italian crew member and injured 15 others at the port of Aliaga in Turkey's western Izmir province late on Monday, petrochemicals maker Petkim said.The vessel was anchored at a harbour at the Petkim petrochemical plant operated by the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR.Italian crew member Roberto Montegurdia died in the incident, Aliaga province's sub-Governor Erhan Gunay told reporters."At Petkim Pier 5 around 23:20 (2020 GMT), a fire broke out due to an unspecified reason during the connection to the Italian flagged Synzania for the filling of liquid hydrocarbons," Petkim said in a press statement."As a result of the immediate intervention of our teams…

19 Feb 2019

As Traders Tussle Turkmenistan Cuts Exports

© kamontad123 / Adobe Stock

A clash between trading house Vitol and Azerbaijan's SOCAR over Caspian Sea oil shipments is forcing Turkmenistan to slash exports of crude due to a lack of tankers.Turkmenistan typically exports about 200,000 tonnes of oil per month via the Caspian to world markets, mainly from fields operated by the UAE's ENOC and Italy's Eni, but flows have halved in recent weeks, six traders involved in operations said.That happened after Turkmen producers decided to export oil via Russia with the help of Swiss trader Vitol and ditch the previous Azeri route…

19 Nov 2018

Oman Shipping: Strong Domestic Performance

Debasish Mohapatra (Photo: OSC)

Oman Shipping Company (OSC) is reporting strong performance in domestic markets following long-term deals with local refineries and traders including ORPIC and OTI.OSC’s growth in the region is being driven by a 20-year contract to transport condensate for ORPIC (Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company) and a 15-year deal transporting methanol for OTI (Oman Trading International) from Salalah Methanol plant.The company is further supporting the export of LPG from Sohar Refinery to Yemen, Sudan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

16 Oct 2018

APM Terminals to Divest Izmir

APM Terminals have reached agreement to divest its container terminal in Izmir, Turkey to its current partner SOCAR.As part of the sales agreement, APM Terminals will continue managing the terminal, ensuring that needs from both shipping lines and landside customers are catered for, said a press release from the company.The sale is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to finalize in the coming months. In the new structure, operating company Petlim will be fully owned by SOCAR Turkey, and managed by APM Terminals.The terminal, to be named Petlim Container Terminal, located in Aliağa, is the largest container terminal in Turkey’s Aegean region with a capacity of 1.3 million TEU per year.Over the last two years…

30 May 2018

SOCAR Inks Deals for Caspian Fields with Equinor

Azeri state oil company SOCAR and Norway's Equinor on Wednesday signed a risk service contract for the development of the Karabakh offshore oil and natural gas field in the Caspian Sea.The two companies also signed a product-sharing agreement for Ashrafi, Dan-Ulduzu and Aypara exploration area."The agreements signed today represent a natural next step in the region. This will strengthen our position in a prolific basin and develop growth options," Equinor Chief Executive Eldar Saetre said in a statement.To operate the licences, Equinor and SOCAR will form a 50-50 joint operating company.

27 Apr 2018

BP Ink Azerbaijan Exploration Deal with SOCAR

SOCAR, the the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic, and BP signed a new production sharing agreement (PSA) for the joint exploration and development of Block D230 in the North Absheron basin in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. The PSA was signed in London, in the presence of UK Prime Minister Theresa May and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, by Rovnag Abdullayev, President of SOCAR, and BP group chief executive Bob Dudley. Speaking at the signing event  Abdullayev said: “We have a long tradition of successful cooperation with BP. I believe that the synergies between modern upstream technology and unique historical experience, embodied in both companies, create a solid basis for our continued success.

28 Mar 2018

Vitol Stores Gasoline Aboard Ships off Singapore

Vitol seen storing gasoline off Singapore as local onshore light distillates stocks at record levels. European trader Vitol is storing gasoline on tankers offshore Singapore, Asia's biggest oil trading centre, for the first time since 2016 amid oversupply and weak demand for the fuel, said four people that participate in the market on Wednesday. The sources said that Vitol was seen storing gasoline aboard more than one so-called Long-Range (LR) tanker. The company does not typically comment on its trading operations. At least one of the vessels is the tanker Glory Crescent, a so-called LR-2 tanker, said one of the four sources. The vessel is 105,000 deadweight tonnes and could carry the equivalent of about 800,000 barrels of gasoline.

08 Sep 2017

Subsea Construction Vessel Launched in Azerbaijan

Designed by Keppel Offshore & Marine and built by Baku Shipyard, the state-of-the-art subsea construction vessel, Khankendi, will install the biggest subsea production system in the Caspian Sea (Photo: Keppel)

The vessel was named Khankendi by the President of Azerbaijan, H.E. Ilham Aliyev, at a ceremony in Baku Shipyard and launched by the Shah Deniz consortium. Baku Shipyard LLC, a joint venture between Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd (Keppel O&M), State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC), has completed a Subsea Construction Vessel (SCV) for the Caspian region. The Khankendi will be deployed to the Shah Deniz field where it is expected to perform subsea installation and construction work over the next eleven years.

18 May 2017

Keppel on Track to Deliver Rig for Caspian Drilling

Photo credit: Keppel Offshore & Marine

Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd (Keppel O&M) through its subsidiary in Azerbaijan, Caspian Shipyard Company (CSC), is on track to deliver a semisubmersible drilling rig to Caspian Drilling Company Ltd, a subsidiary of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR). The rig was named Heydar Aliyev at a ceremony in Azerbaijan today by the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. Built to Keppel FELS' proprietary DSSTM 38M design, the rig has been customized for the Caspian Sea's harsh environment condition. It is the first modern semisubmersible to be almost completely built in Azerbaijan.

17 Jul 2016

Turkey Reopens Key Shipping Route After Coup Attempt

Turkish maritime authorities have reopened Istanbul's Bosphorus Strait to transiting tankers after shutting it earlier on Saturday for several hours following what the government said was an attempted coup by a faction in the military. The Bosphorus is one of world's most important chokepoints for the maritime transit of oil with over three percent of global supply - mainly from Russia and the Caspian Sea - passing through the 17-mile waterway that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. It also ships vast amounts of grains from Russia and Kazakhstan to world markets. On Saturday, forces loyal to the Turkish government fought to crush the remnants of a military coup attempt, following violence and clashes in Ankara and Istanbul.

07 Dec 2015

Six More Bodies Found After Azeri Oil Platform Fire

The bodies of six oil workers missing from an Azeri oil platform in the Caspian Sea that caught fire on Friday have been found, the state energy company SOCAR said on Monday. It said a helicopter search for the other missing would continue at daybreak. Out of the 62 people who were on the Guneshli oil rig when the fire started, one was confirmed dead on Sunday and 33 were rescued. Efforts were also continuing to try to put the fire out. "As of now, at least one well is on fire," said Balamirza Alirahimov, chief engineer at Azneft, SOCAR's production union. The fire started on Friday after a storm caused some of the platform's production equipment to collapse, damaging a natural gas pipeline. The platform had daily production of 920 tonnes of oil and 1.08 million cubic metres of gas.

04 Dec 2015

Workers Rescued from Oil Platform Fire in Caspian Sea

Forty two workers have been rescued from an offshore oil platform that caught fire in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea, Azeri independent TV ANS said on Friday. Azeri state energy company SOCAR was not immediately available to comment. SOCAR said earlier that the fire started after a gas pipeline on the platform was damaged in heavy wind. It said the rescue attempt was being complicated by a heavy storm. One of the workers called a Reuters correspondent from the platform and said there were 84 people trapped. The worker did not want to be named. SOCAR also said earlier that workers were missing after an accident at another offshore oil platform during the storm. A search-and-rescue operation was underway, it added.

04 Dec 2015

Three Workers Missing in Offshore Platform Accident

Three workers are missing after an accident at an offshore oil platform in the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan, Azeri state energy company SOCAR said on Friday.   SOCAR said a small cabin, where workers were living, was washed into the sea from the platform during a heavy storm.   "The accident did not affect the oil production process," the SOCAR spokesman, Nizameddin Guliyev, told reporters.   He said that a search-and-rescue operation was underway.   Four workers were killed and one went missing after a fire broke out on SOCAR's other oil and gas platform in the Caspian Sea in Oct. 2014. (Reporting by Nailia Bagirova; writing by Margarita Antidze; editing by Jane Merriman)

08 Oct 2015

Urals Weakens Further in Baltic

Russian Urals crude differentials continued to slide in the Baltic on Thursday amid a flurry of activity with softer refining margins, pushed down by higher oil prices, still keeping buyers at bay. In the Platts window, Statoil bought a 100,000-tonne cargo from Glencore for loadings on Oct. 18-22 in the Baltic at dated Brent minus $2 a barrel, some 20 cents weaker than on Wednesday, traders said. Litasco, Total and Vitol have found no buyers with offers of minus $1.80, $1.75 and $1.85 to dated Brent correspondingly. In the south, Litasco increased its bids for 80,000 and 140,000 cargoes to minus 95 cents and minus $1.20 to dated Brent respectively, without success. The were no deals with both Azeri and CPC Blend in the Platts window.

05 Jun 2015

Azeri SOCAR's Oil Shipments via Russia Up 40 pct

Azerbaijan's SOCAR shipped 593,449 tonnes of oil via Russia in the first five months of 2015, up from 423,644 tonnes in the same period last year, the state energy company said on Friday. SOCAR said in January it had signed a one-year contract with Russian oil pipeline operator Transneft to transport 1.7 million tonnes of oil through the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline, up from 1.02 million tonnes in 2014. SOCAR had planned to halt oil exports via Russia in February 2014, opting instead to send the bulk of its crude through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and retaining some to cover rising domestic demand for oil products. The company reversed its plans later that month. Oil exports via Russia for the whole of 2013 totalled 1.75 million tonnes, down from 2.06 million in 2012.

14 Mar 2015

Azeri LNG Hub in Malta

Malta and Azerbaijan have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on the development of a gas hub which would cater for local and international markets, reports the Times of Malta. The MOU targets strategic collaboration in the oil and gas sector as part of the government’s vision to transform energy and petroleum sectors into key value added economic activities. To this end, both sides identified a number of key areas. The European Union is also looking southwards to develop a “southern gas corridor” for natural gas from Azerbaijan to fuel the European mainland. A key policy that also ties in with the Maltese government’s prospective energy shift to gas…

23 Oct 2014

Three Dead in Offshore Platform Accident

Three workers were killed and one is still missing after an accident at one of the offshore oil and gas platforms in the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan, Azeri state energy company SOCAR said on Thursday. SOCAR said that one of the platforms collapsed during repair works and a small wagon-house fell into the sea, damaging and causing a fire on a pipeline used for domestic gas deliveries. The fire was extinguished within an hour. There were 41 workers on site: 37 of them were evacuated by a rescue team, while four fell into the sea. "The dead bodies of three workers, missing after an accident at the faulty platform, have been found," SOCAR said. A commission has been created to investigate the accident.

03 Sep 2014

Trading Houses Limit Gasoline Trades as Profits Slump

Traders Mercuria, Trafigura and SOCAR cut gasoline desks; new refining capacity slashes traditional profitability. U.S. refining boom weighs on global light products. Trading houses are shrinking their gasoline desks in response to a slump in activity, particularly in Europe, where overseas competition and rising global supplies have limited opportunities to make money. New and highly competitive refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, in Asia and the Middle East have increased global supplies of the motor fuel. That has made the most active and lucrative trading routes, such as the transatlantic arbitrage between Europe and the U.S. East Coast, less and less profitable for traders. "After a decent beginning to the year, the arbitrage to the U.S.

31 May 2014

Total Sells Its 10% Interest In Shah Deniz To TPAO

Total today signed an agreement to sell its 10% interest in the Shah Deniz field and the South Caucasus Pipeline to TPAO, the Turkish state-owned E&P company. The transaction is valued at $1.5 billion and is subject to customary approvals. “The sale of our interest in Shah Deniz is in line with Total’s active portfolio management and the focus of its investment capability on more strategic assets,” said Michael Borrell, Senior Vice-President Continental Europe and Central Asia at Total’s Exploration and Production. “This sale is another step forward in achieving our asset sale program. In Azerbaidjan, Total remains operator of the Absheron offshore field with a 40% share.