THE PREMIER OF NORWAY WILL ARRIVE IN AZERBAIJAN WITH AN OFFICIAL VISIT ON SEPTEMBER
BAKU.08.08.2003.MEDIA-PRESS: The Premier of Norway Mrs. Khiel Magne Bunnevick will arrive in Azerbaijan with the official visit in the beginning of September.
BAKU.08.08.2003.MEDIA-PRESS: Azerbaijan is grateful to the Islamic Republic of Iran for rendering the economical assistance. The Minister of the Economical Development of Azerbaijan Mr. Farkhad Aliyev has declared this at the meeting with the Chief of the Custom House of Iran and the Deputy of the Minister of Economy and Finances of Iran Mr. Korbasiyan. "Accepted tax privileges and reduction of expenses for transportation to Iran and through this country have rendered a significant assistance to our country. I am sure that economic relations between Teheran and Baku will develop actively and extent in the next future", - Mr. F. Aliyev has said. He has emphasized also the great significance of the Iranian credits and investments for restoration of the transport system in Azerbaijan.
BAKU.08.08.2003.MEDIA-PRESS: Russia and Iran intend to activate an operation of the International Transport Corridor (ITC) "North - South". The Deputy Minister of Transport of the RF, the Chief of the State Russian Marine Fleet Mr. Vyacheslav Ruksha, which is in the capital of Iran with a visit has told about this in his interview to the RIA "Novosty".
BAKU.08.08.2003.MEDIA-PRESS: The electronic system of monitoring the navigation, which started to operate in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles significantly amplified the navigation safety, the General Director of the Shore Guard Service of Turkey Mr. Hucum Tulgar has said.
BAKU.08.08.2003.MEDIA-PRESS: On August 22 the sitting of the Caspian Business Integration Club will pass in Baku. Its participants will discuss a role of small and middle business in the oil and gas projects being carried out in the Caspian region by the Company BP and other large oil and gas companies.
BAKU.08.08.2003.MEDIA-PRESS: On October 1 - 3 the first specialized Azerbaijan International Exhibition "Printing Industry and Media" - AzPrintMedia-2003 will be held in Baku. ITE Group PLC (the Great Britain) and its exlusive partner in the Transcaucasus Iteca Caspian Ltd. are organizers of it.
BAKU.08.08.2003.MEDIA-PRESS: On August 7 the Premier of Azerbaijan Mr. Ilham Aliyev familiarized in details with the Semisubmersible Floating Drilling Rig "Leader" put into operation on July of this year.
BAKU.08.08.2003.MEDIA-PRESS: The oil export volume from the RF on January - June 2003 has grown by 16% in comparison with the analogous period of the past year and made 106.019 tons.
BAKU.08.08.2003.MEDIA-PRESS: The works on the construction of the semisubmersible drilling rig (SSDR) "Mazandaran", which will be used in exploration of the perspective Caspian structures have completed by 59%. The newspaper "Tehran Times" has informed about this with a reference to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
BAKU.08.08.2003.MEDIA-PRESS: The fuel-energetic industry is the most dynamically developing economic sector of Iran, Mr. Seyid Akhmad Azimi, the member of the energetic Comission of the IRI Mejlis has declared. He has added that the consumption of the car fuel in Iran exceeds average statistic rates of the leading world states; for example, while in Europe 3 - 4 liters of benzene are consumed by each car per a day and in the USA a major part of cargo transportations is carried out by auto transport - 7 - 8 l, Iran consumes 11 l.
BAKU.08.08.2003.MEDIA-PRESS: The Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Mr. Vilayat Guliyev does not except a possibility of meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Armenia for discussion of the regional problems. By his opinion, such meeting may take place on September in New-York within frameworks of the General Assembly of the OUN.
In accordance with the information received in the Embassy of Norway in Azerbaijan the Premier of Norway has been invited by the Prime-Minister of the country. In the capital of Azerbaijan Mrs. Bunnevick will conduct talks on prospects of enlarging the economic cooperation between both countries. A signing of new intergovernmental agreements in the agriculture, fishery, forestry and tourism fields is not excepted.
Earlier negotiations on a level of the Premiers of both countries were conducted in 2000 within frameworks of the visit of the Premier of Azerbaijan Mr. Artur Rasizade to Oslo. The Norwegian state petroleum company Statoil operating since 1993 in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea had founded a base for the economic cooperation. By a level of investments in the oil sector this company gives in only the oil giant BP. Its investments in the oil and gas projects in Azerbaijan are estimated by $2bn.
IRAN AND AZERBAIJAN INTEND TO ENLARGE COOPERATION IN SIMPLIFYING THE EXPORT-IMPORT RELATIONS
In his turn Mr. Korbasiyan has noted, that the last year visit of the President of Azerbaijan Mr. G. Aliyev to Teheran became the key milestone in the history of the bilateral relations and emphasized that customs play a significant role in development of economical cooperation between both countries. The Iranian Chief also has declared a readiness of his country for assistance to the modernization of the custom services of Azerbaijan along all common frontiers.
The Deputy Minister of Finances of Iran has noted a necessity of repealing the double taxation in bilateral trade relations and also called for acceptance of single tax and reduction of tax rates for trailer drivers going to both countries.
RUSSIA AND IRAN INTEND TO ACTIVATE AND OPERATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT CORRIDOR "NORTH - SOUTH"
"The joint sitting of the working commission of the ITC "North - South" is held in these days and our task is to assist concretely to the transport corridor for its operation", - Mr. V. Ruksha has noted.
"During meetings with the the Deputy Minister of Transport of Iran Mr. Masud Khansary and the Secretary of ITC Mr. Javad Atrchiyan directions of possible operation the terminal complexes on processing the transit cargo in the Russian and Iranian ports", - the Deputy Minister has added.
Also he has emphasized that introduction of businessmen to the operation of the ITC, development of business contacts and attraction of investments to the project realization is one of the most significant problems on the agenda of the conference.
By the words of the Deputy Minister of the Transport of Russia the Russian-Iranian transport trend will be able to operate already now and increase cargo transportation volumes after the service improvement.
In the end of April 2003 Kazakhstan and Byelorussia joined to the interstate agreement on the ITC "North - South" signed by Russia, Iran and India one year ago. Azerbaijan also displays its interest to the participation in the ITC "North - South".
The ITC allows to carry out transportations between cities of Russia and CIS, regions of the Middle East, Persian Gulf and the South-East Asia qualitatively and for short terms.
THE NAVIGATION IN THE BOSPHORUS AND DARDANELLES DOES NOT MEET ANY ACCIDENTS ALREADY NOW, THEY CONFIRM IN ANKARA
As the Anatolian Agency reports, Mr. Tulgar has noted that "if earlier in average for a month approximately 10 large or small accidents occurred in these straits, now after putting into operation this monitoring system no accident has been registered".
We shall remind that the automatic radar control system with a cost of $2 MM was put into operation in the test exploitation on July 1 of this year. The project was financed from the proper means of the Navigation Management and since the next year about 30 private and state institutions may use this system.
Though the electronic system will start to operate fully since October of this year, Mr. Hucum Tulgar has noted already now it allowed to amplify significantly the navigation safety in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles."We monitor the navigation regime for 24 hours per a day, registering such little details as, for example exceeding the established velocity of passing through the straits. And captains of the ships as well as pilots know this and so they try to not break established navigation regime. And in result we have not accident", the General Director of the Shore Guard Service Mr. Khujum Tulgar has resumed.
ON AUGUST THE SITTING OF THE CASPIAN BUSINESS INTEGRATION CLUB WILL PASS IN BAKU
Besides of chiefs of the companies, representatives of the Government of Azerbaijan, personally the Minister of the Economic Development Mr. Farkhad Aliyev, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, the diplomatic missions.
ON OCTOBER THE FIRST SPECIALIZED AZERBAIJAN INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION "THE POLYGRAPHY AND MEDIA" WILL BE HELD IN BAKU
Editions, reclaim agencies, mass-media, web-studios from different countries will present their production and technologies, printing equipment, designer mounting and other working-outs.
It is expected that about 10 000 visitors will come to exposition, including specialists and chief of the companies of the given sphere, managers on marketing and public relations, office-managers of the oil industry enterprises, TV communications, construction, food, chemistry, pharmaceutical and services fields.
THE PREMIER OF AZERBAIJAN MR. ILHAM ALIYEV HAS FAMILIARIZED WITH SEMISUBMERSIBLE FLOATING DRILLING RIG "LEADER".
The Chief of the Singapore Corporation "Keppel Fells" Mr. Lim Chy, which took part into the construction of the modern SSDR had informed in details the Premier about technicall capacities of the rig.
The Danish Company Maersk Contractors was the project contractor and the American ExxonMobil was a consumer. The construction of the SSDR with a cost of $250 MM, which was called DSS earlier, was conducted since the summer of 2001 by both the Azerbaijan-Russia-Singapore JC Caspian Shipyard Company Ltd. and Keppel Fells in Singapor at the same time.
The SSDR is possible to carry out drilling of the wells with a depth up to 9144 m at sea depths within ranges from 75 up to 1025 meters.
Mr. I. Aliyev has familiarized in details with all parameters of the rig, which is called to play a significant role in the development of the Caspian resources.
The "Leader" will operate in drilling of exploration wells in the contract areas "Nakhchivan", "Zafar-Mashal", where ExxonMobil is the operator and as well as on the field "Yalama" (the operator "LUKoil"). It is expected that already on September the rig will start its operation.
Thus, there four SSDR are in the park of specialized drilling rigs operating in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea.
THE OIL EXPORT VOLUME FROM THE RF HAS GREWN BY 16%
Earnings from export deliveries of oil on January - June 2003 has made $17.7 bn and grew by 43%.
Over 87.2 MM tons of oil by a total of $15.4 bn were exported to the foreing countries and Baltic Basin. During 6 months 18.8 MM tons of oil by a total of $2.27 bn were exported to the Commonwealth of the Independent States (CIS).
Gas export from the RF increased by 1.5% on January - June, 2003.
IRAN PREPARES FOR CONDUCTION OF THE DRILLING WORKS IN THE CASPIAN SEA
The project is estimated by $215 MM and carried out by the Consortium which includes Iran Maritime Industries (Sadra) and Swedish Corporation GVA-C.
By the information of the newspaper the works go on in accordance with a schedule, and the rig will be delivered to the consumer in the middle of 2004. There is no information about the technical parameters of the SSDR "Mazandaran". It is known that it will operate in the deepwater sector of the Caspian Sea.
For the present there is no official information about a structure where the Iranian side intends to start works with usage of the SSDR "Mazandaran". The seismic exploration data on the Iranian area of the Caspian Sea received by the Holland Company Royal Dutch Shell allow to suppose that 10 bn barrels of oil are available there as minimum. The International Consortium, which will conduct exploration of the perspective structures has not been completely formed also, - the "Tehran Times" confirms.
GAS SUPPLIES OF IRAN WILL LAST 400 YEARS
As to a problem of privatization of the fuel sector, Mr. Azimi has said that this field wil be divided in oil, gas and electric power. The oil field is divided in processing, production and sales of different kinds of fuel. At the present time we cannot privatize OPP as the state capital dominates in this economic sector. However, at first we can to privatize the petrol stations, afterwards this process will touch contiguous kinds of activities and till then when the private sector will predominate in this field oil processing plants will be privatized.
Mr. has mentioned about important role of the gas oil "South Pars" in supplying the country by the power resources and reminded that this field is one of the largest in the world and contains 8% of the world gas supplies. Taking into account that in 30 - 40 years the world oil field will exhausted, Iran will have a great advantage compared to other countries-exporters of the "blue fuel". And if the gas consumption in the country will continue in the present rates, it will last 400 years, Mr. Azimi has said.
THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF AZERBAIJAN ADMITS A POSSIBILITY OF TRILATERAL NEGOTIATIONS WITH ARMENIA AND TURKEY
"We have no objections against such meeting, however we perform against its transforming into ungrounded discussion. If concrete ideas are available, we are ready for discussion of them", - the Minister has said to the journalists.
With this he has declared that all efforts of Armenia to destabilize the situation in Azerbaijan will be doomed in failure. "Armenia, which specially breaks a regime of fire stop in a very significant for Azerbaijan period, i.e. just before the President Elections wills to strike on stability in Republic. However, the Azerbaijan Army has prevented and will put an end to similar efforts in the future", - Mr. V. Guliyev has said.
The Minister has reminded that the MFA of Azerbaijan has sent the information about frequent breakings of fire stop regime by Armenia and it was distributed as the official document of the organization.
Mr. Guliyev also called appeals of the Armenian Government for negotiations between Azerbaijan and unrecognized Nagorny Karabakh Republic "the prepared and subsequently conducted play of the Armenian side".
