Energy in Azerbaijan

[Haykakan]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan continues to battle Guneshli rig fire

http://en.trend.az/azerbaijan/society/2476446.html

Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 3

Trend:

The ministry of emergency situations of Azerbaijan continues measures to eliminate the consequences of the accident at the deepwater platform No. 10 of the country’s offshore Guneshli oil field, the ministry’s website said Jan. 3.

A fire broke out on the offshore platform Dec. 4, as a strong storm damaged an underwater high-pressure gas pipeline. As many as 33 people were rescued in an ensuing large-scale operation. The bodies of eight killed were retrieved, while 22 oil workers are still listed as missing.

Two Azerbaijani firefighting vessels still battle the fire, while the search for the missing oil workers continue, according to the ministry of emergency situations of Azerbaijan.

Wow that fire has been burning all this time. Imagine how much pollution it has caused and all the energy wasted. The incompetence of this leadership is so jarringly obvious.

[HyeSocialist]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

Wow that fire has been burning all this time. Imagine how much pollution it has caused and all the energy wasted. The incompetence of this leadership is so jarringly obvious.

Yeah, man. The air around there can't be good to breathe. Wouldn't trust black caviar producers in the area much either...

Wondering if this fire raises the risk of fire at other facilities as well?

[londontsi]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

BAKU, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Azerbaijan will probably close its diplomatic missions in a number of countries, local media reported Wednesday, citing spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.

Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev said "this issue is being seriously considered by the government in order to minimize effects caused by the situation in the global energy market," according to news agency TREND.........

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-12/31/c_134965892.htm

six embassies closing and three more planned will be cancelled

[HyeSocialist]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan Suffers From Currency Crash, Low Oil Prices

Deeply in debt, a man in Azerbaijan sets himself alight -- highlighting the human cost of the collapse of the country's currency.

Alik Navruzov's self-immolation in front of his workplace on January 7 was said to be his response to the sudden crash of the manat, which has lost about a third of its value since Azerbaijan's Central Bank announced in December that it would no longer prop up the currency.

According to colleagues at the school in Neftchala where he worked as a maintenance man, Navruzov complained of having bank loans he could no longer make payments on.

The 63-year-old survived, and is now reportedly in stable condition at a hospital in the city, located in the eponymous oil-producing region some 130 kilometers south of the capital. But there appears to be no signs of relief for Navruzov's dire financial straits -- a situation that is all too familiar to a growing number of people in Azerbaijan.

Less than a year after the Caspian Sea state hosted the first-ever European Games, an event President Ilham Aliyev had hoped would showcase his country's prosperity, it's evident that from the government to the people on the street, Azerbaijan is struggling financially.

In announcing its decision to stop propping up the currency on December 21, the Central Bank argued that the practice had diminished foreign reserves by more than half.

Falling global energy prices have hit hard in Azerbaijan, where energy exports account for about three-quarters of state revenues. To offset the envisioned budget hit, the Central Bank changed the way it values the manat nearly a year ago. But the move away from the dollar to a dollar-euro basket in February 2015 also caused a drop in the currency.

Feeling The Pinch

Currency devaluation always comes with the double whammy of falling spending power and rising prices, and Azerbaijan is no different.

When news of the Central Bank's decision reached the streets, people across the country rushed to shops to scoop up whatever they could before prices adjusted to the new reality.

With less money in their pockets, many people in Azerbaijan are forced to forego less essential items, but food is definitely not one of them.

As a result, the cost of many items -- such as tomatoes and grapes -- has shot up, in some cases by as much as 100 percent.

A shop owner in the capital, Baku, explained to RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service why he had to raise his prices.

"I, too, pay rent. My landlord raised the rent. My suppliers also raised prices," Shamil Hasanov said. "What can I do? The prices for everything -- butter, rice, sugar -- all were raised, and I can no longer sell them for less."

Even small expenditures are being weighed more carefully by average Azerbaijanis.

Valikhan Karimov, a 68-year-old pensioner, explained why buying his grandson a ticket for an attraction on Baku's busy promenade requires sacrifice.

"I paid two manats for this ride, which lasted two minutes. I made those two manats selling 10 kilos of apples," he said. "I come here once a year [eds. he lives in Quba] to take my grandchild out, and this is all I can afford."

Others feeling the pinch are those people who took out bank loans, paid out, of course, in manats, but calculated in dollars.

Abdul Akhundov, who works in the IT field, said he can't make a dent in paying down his loans from two banks worth some $3,000.

"I took a loan a year ago, before the devaluation. I asked the bank for a loan in manats but the gave it to me in dollars," Akhundov lamented. "No matter how much I argued with the bank at the time telling them we did not live in America so why make me take a loan in dollars it didn't make any difference."

Elnur Bayramov, who lives in Ganca, said he called his bank immediately after the manat plunged to tell them he couldn't make payments anymore.

"My loan was in the amount of $2,000 and I haven't even bothered to figure out how much I owe now with the new exchange rate," Bayramov said. "I called the bank, too, telling them to stop calling me every minute and that I will pay when I have the money and if they are not happy about it they can take me to court."

Looking For Funds To Help

Aliyev's government, criticized in the West for its abysmal human rights record, appears ready to help those hardest hit by the increasing prices.

Labor and Social Welfare Minister Salim Muslimov announced on January 6 that his ministry was working on ways to raise welfare payments, and should deliver proposals by the end of the month.

He said his ministry was monitoring prices in six regions of the country -- Baku, Sumgait, Mingachevir, Ganca, Lankaran, Tovuz, and Agsu -- and, based on those observations, his ministry would calculate how much social-welfare payouts should rise.

However, raising expenditures is something Aliyev's government is probably less than eager to do. Officials in his government now appear preoccupied with finding where and how to cut costs.

The Foreign Ministry announced on January 5 that Baku was looking to make cuts to staffing and other costs at its foreign embassies, but denied reports in the Azerbaijani press that a number of embassies in South American countries would be closed.

Meanwhile, ordinary Azerbaijanis are left to cope with the hardships amid growing disillusionment with the government.

"I worked in three different places before manat died," wrote one respondent to a questionnaire by RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service. "I don't know in how many more places I will have to work now."

Another respondent expected the manat to continue on its downward spiral.

"Everybody knows the dollar will continue to get more expensive," the person wrote. "In this situation, you should take out bank credit in manats and then convert it into dollars and wait for the next devaluation. This way we will 'rob' the banks that usually 'rob' us."

http://www.rferl.org/content/azerbaijan-suffers-currency-crash-oil-prices/27479606.html

[Mher]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

Hyperinflation threatens Azerbaijan


After the second devaluation of the manat last year and the events that followed: inflation, emergence of the almost forgotten word – deficit, which applies to medicines, foods, cigarettes and alcohol, the population of Azerbaijan is very anxious. In fact, what could be the highest inflation rate in Azerbaijan this year? Could it reach the terrifying numbers, such as 43% in Ukraine in the last year? As it turns out, if the dollar continues rapid growth, then Azerbaijan cannot avoid hyperinflation.

In an interview to Azeri Daily Director of the Centre for Economic and Social Development (CESD) of Azerbaijan, doctor of economic sciences Vuqar Bayramov said that an accurate prediction as to what will be Inflation in 2016 no one can give, for everything depends on the fact which will be the final rate of the manat against the US dollar.

‘However, given the current economic realities of Azerbaijan, it is already possible to say that inflation will be double-digit, and this fact, alas, is undeniable. According to our research, if there is a third devaluation, given the higher prices for imported and local products, in 2016 inflation in Azerbaijan will be 14%.

This will be the maximum level of inflation in recent years in Azerbaijan. It exceeds the rate of inflation in 2015 by 3.5 times. In 2015, according to official statistics the rate of inflation in Azerbaijan was fixed at 3.8%, but according to our monitoring this figure is understated, and the real rate of inflation for the year was 9%.’

Can the economy of Azerbaijan share the fate of Ukraine, where inflation in 2015 rose to 43.3% and reached a maximum value over the past 20 years? This was reported on the website of the State Service of Statistics of Ukraine. For comparison, at the end of 2014, inflation in the country amounted to 24.9%.

According to Bayramov, indeed, many in the country fear that the Azerbaijani manat awaits the fate of the Ukrainian hryvnia, and the rate of inflation in Azerbaijan will also come close to Ukrainian indicators of inflation exceeding 40%. ‘Unfortunately, no one can say that this is impossible. All again rests on the rate of the manat against the US dollar. If the dollar will continue rapid growth, hyperinflation cannot be avoided in Azerbaijan,’ summed up the economist.

However, simultaneously with the hyperinflation in Ukraine in December, prices fell for some goods. For example, pork and rice became cheaper by 2.1% and 2.0%. Fashion became cheaper by 1.7%, including clothes – by 1.9%, footwear – by 1.5%. Prices dropped for tobacco products.

This means that the laws of the market in Ukraine are still working. And in Azerbaijan, as we know, once raised prices are rarely reduced. And the events that occurred in the currency and consumer markets in the country after December 21, 2015 confirm that.

http://cesd.az/new/?p=9898

[londontsi]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan's sovereign fund buys Palazzo Turati in Milan for 97 million

http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2016/01/08/fondo-sovrano-dellazerbaijan-compra-palazzo-turati-a-milano-per-97-milioni/2358016/

January 8, 2016

The fund sovereign Azerbaijani State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan has reached an agreement to buy Palazzo Turati , historic seat of the Chamber of Commerce of Milan , in via Marvel. It is a palace built in 1880 by engineers Bridges and Bordoli of the Audit Turati who already in 1876 had built the adjoining building. The price is 97 million euro. It is, reports Sofaz in a statement on its website, the first acquisition estate made by State Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Italy . The property is being sold by Tecnoholding , financial shared by the Chambers of Commerce. To act on behalf of Sofaz was Coima dell'immobiliarista Manfredi Catella , which will be a real estate fund for the purpose.

Sofaz is the arm with which Azerbaijani President, Ilham Aliyev , son of a family in power since 1991, manages the financial investments. Socar deals instead of industrial investment in hydrocarbons, such as pipeline Tap intended to bring gas from Shah Deniz field to Europe, with final destination in Melendugno, in the province of Lecce.

The sovereign wealth fund of the oil-producing country, according to a report in Il Sole 24 Ore , had previously participated in the tender for the acquisition of the former headquarters of ' Unicredit in Piazza Cordusio, always in Milan, then bought by the group Chinese Fosun for 345 million of euro .

[Joseph]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

Standard & Poor’s gives negative outlook on credit rating of Azerenerji

Baku, Fineko/abc.az. International rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has given negative outlook on the rating of Azerenerji OJSC.

S&P reports that the negative outlook was given on both short-term corporate rating in local and foreign currencies and long-term credit rating (in local and foreign currencies).

In particular, the Company’s current long-term credit rating is set at BBB-, while short-term corporate rating at A-3.

S&P also lowered Azerenerji’s independent credit profile from "b" to "ccc+" due to "significant growth of the coefficient of leverage, unsustainable capital structure".

The agency also stresses that 81% of Azerenerji’s debt is exposed to currency risk.

[Joseph]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-azerbaijan-rig-accident-idUSKCN0UQ0MT20160112

Azeri oil disaster an open wound for survivors

BAKU | BY NAILIA BAGIROVA
For the survivors of a lifeboat which hung between a blazing oil rig and 10-meter waves on a wind-lashed sea, the horror lives on while the search for the comrades they saw die is not complete.

A fire still burns from the worst ever accident in Azerbaijan's oil industry. An enquiry continues on the Dec. 4 disaster which took around 30 lives when a 27-hour storm raged across the Caspian Sea.

"When the fire started, we sat in two lifeboats, but did not put them down on the sea surface as we were afraid that a storm could break them into pieces," Allakhverdi Mamedov, who was in charge of the stricken platform above the Guneshli oil field, told Reuters.

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"We were sitting and waiting for rescuers, when the hawsers of the other boat ripped, it dropped into the water and collapsed. Hawsers, which were holding other boats, broke as they did not withstand the pressure from the storm."

That lifeboat was sent plunging into the sea where the impact broke it up, spilling those on board. Only two workers from that boat survived.

Those in Mamedov's lifeboat spent the night dangling from the platform. They were only rescued the following day when, after the storm had subsided somewhat, a rescue helicopter was able to land on the platform.

Thirty workers were lost after Guneshli, operated by Azeri state energy company SOCAR caught fire after the storm caused some of the its production equipment to collapse, damaging a natural gas pipeline.

"I thought it was the last day of my life. We were afraid that the platform would blow up. The picture was horrible – heavy wind, high waves ... My very close friends died. It’s very painful to recollect that events," another worker, who declined to give his name, said.

Rescuers have discovered nine bodies and search for 21 more as well as three workers who were swept into the sea from another platform some 11.5 miles (18.5 kilometers) away.

The rig accident was the worst since the U.S. drilling ship Seacrest capsized during a typhoon in the Gulf of Thailand in 1989, killing more than 90 people.

The previous biggest accident on an offshore oil platform in Azerbaijan killed 22 men in 1957.

"This is the biggest tragedy in SOCAR's history. The fire on Guneshli platform was the biggest in Azerbaijan's oil industry since 1949, when the country started offshore oil production," SOCAR's vice president, Khalik Mamedov, told Reuters.

"We lost 33 men in one day and that's horrible."

"The chances of finding anyone alive equal zero," said SOCAR's first vice president, Khoshbakht Usifzade. "We lost our friends ... But we do our best to find bodies and hand them over to relatives." .

Azeri and American specialists worked together to put out fires from oil and gas wells.

"Thank to these efforts, the fire was extinguished on several wells, including one, where there was the risk of an oil spill, but some gas wells are still on fire," said Balamirza Agaragimov, chief engineer at Azneft, SOCAR's production union.

SAFETY MEASURES

"There were abnormal weather conditions that day and we could not expect that. The wind, which lasted for 27 hours, lifted waves to 8-10 meters height," SOCAR's Khalik Mamedov said.

Critics questioned safety measures on the platform, which was built in 1984 with a 50-year operation term. "There were some shortcomings in the gas pipeline on the platform, which were difficult to identify, when the weather was normal," said Mirvari Gakhramanly, head of Azerbaijan's Oil Workers' Rights Protection Committee.

Gakhramanly, who was the first to report fatalities, said that mistakes had been made during the evacuation. Usifzade said the company would review safety measures on its platforms, many of which were built in Soviet times.

"We are not going to sit on our hands, of course ... Our engineers will think about new safety measures on platforms in case of very high waves," he said.

He added the company also planned to buy new lifeboats.

"Those lifeboats were modern and had been purchased in South Korea. But it seems we need to buy other lifeboats with a different modification, which are more suitable for our weather conditions," Usifzade said. The platform had daily production of 920 tonnes of oil and 1.08 million cubic meters of gas. It is one of 14 platforms on the Guneshli oilfield. SOCAR produces about 60 percent of its oil from Guneshli.

Unlike for other major oil producers, foreign companies do not provide servicing for SOCAR-led platforms, a total number of 193 and most of them build in 1980s.

British oil major BP, which accounts for around 75 percent of Azeri oil production, runs a total of eight platforms. BP said that its operations were not affected by the outage.

Valery Nesterov, a veteran analyst with Moscow-based Sberbank CIB, said that offshore oil and gas production is always associated with big risk, even if safety is on the highest level.

"Such accidents are again raising a big question over the need to explore Arctic offshore," Nesterov said.

(Additional reporting by Olesya Astakhova in Moscow; Writing by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Katya Golubkova, Christian Lowe and William Hardy)

[HyeSocialist]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

The shops are closing one by one, prices are rising, wages are being delayed and people are panicking. This is how Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea nation and ex-Soviet republic of nearly 10 million people, is rigning in the New Year.

The manat, Azerbaijan's national currency, is plummeting with the price of oil -- which accounts for 94 percent of the exports of the nation and 73 percent of the budget. The currency has lost most of its value against the dollar after the government dropped its support for the manat, but not before burning through half of the nation's hard currency reserves, Reuters reported.

The first protests against price hikes and salary delays have began in the cities of Lankaran, Agjabady and Siyazan. In Lankaran, local residents closed the Baku-Astara road despite police attempts to prevent the protest, according to Meydan.TV.

And Azeri President Ilham Aliyev, the nation's dictator, doesn't seem to have a plan to rescue the nation beyond saying he will impose price controls.

Economic expert Natig Jafarly called president’s attitude to the current situation “Soviet-administrative”.

“The president and his team don’t understand or they don’t want to believe what is happening in Azerbaijan. We were waiting for the anti-crisis plan, but instead of that we saw kind of a Soviet-administrative attitude," Jafarly said. "And this will cause a deeper crisis. It is more than clear that the present government is not able to save this country from the crisis, and the way of resolving of these problems is not the only economic reforms, but political reforms, the re-establishment of a management system – all these processes go through the parliament re-election as a first step,” Jafarly posted on his official Facebook account.

While waiting for Aliyev to come up with a plan, Azerbaijan will not have the benefit of civil society or an independent press, both long-repressed elements of society. Some of the main figures in civil society or journalism are in prison, including Intigam Aliyev, Anar Mammadov, Bashir Suleymanov, Khadija Ismayil and Rasul Jafarov.

And Aliyev's poor human rights records mean it cannot count on help from the European Union, unlike other nations.

On Jan. 11, the price of oil fell to $31 a barrel, while Azerbaijan's cost per-barrel of prodcution is $11.

Jafarly wrote that Azerbaijan's state budget for 2016 counts on $50 a barrel for oil. But such a price rise is not expected this year. That means the government will have difficulty financing such projects as the the Baku-Tbilisi-Gars railway project.

http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/world/oil-price-drop-sinks-azerbaijans-economy-405747.html

[HyeSocialist]

Re: Energy in Azerbaijan

Food prices have skyrocketed in Azerbaijan since the manat was allowed to float to offset the effects of low oil prices and the country’s shrinking foreign currency reserves.

The prices of tomatoes and grapes have doubled since the central bank stopped propping up the currency three weeks ago, Radio Free Europe says. The increase is less severe but still considerable for foods such as rice and beef.

Borrowers who took out loans in dollars and other foreign currencies are also feeling the pinch. The manat fell by a third against the dollar and euro immediately after the float and has continued to trade at the same level, around 1.56 to the dollar.


President Ilham Aliev (pictured) weighed in on the situation 10 January, saying “artificial” price rises must stop.

“The recent increase in prices must not be applied to domestic products and there should be strict control over consumer prices,” he told the cabinet, as quoted by APA.


Lines formed at currency exchanges and many exchange offices suspended business last week after the central bank imposed a 4 percent band on exchange rates to stem speculative trading. The bank also set a ceiling on transactions of $500 and 500 euros, Caucasian Knot reported.

In his remarks to the cabinet, Aliev admitted the country remained dependent on food imports, while insisting there should be no increase in the price of domestic foods.

The president also said development of the non-oil sector and economic diversification in Azerbaijan will remain priorities in 2016, APA reports.

http://www.tol.org/client/article/25435-azerbaijan-manat-prices-food-aliev.html