Nowadays, there is a big influence of oil industry development to the economical and political life of the country: many international oil companies are involved to the oil production.
On the 20th February 1994 the ‘Contract of the Century’ was signed resulting in the formation of Azerbaijan International Oil Company (AIOC). The shareholders are:
BP 17.1%, AMOCO (now BP) 17%, Unocal 10.09%, SOCAR (Azerbaijan National Oil Co) 10%, Lukoil 10%, Statoil 8.6%, Exxon 8%, TPAO (Turkey) 6.75%, Pennzoil 4.8%, Itochu 3.9%, Ramco 2.1% and Delta 1.7%.
Its first project named Early Oil Project (EOP) was signed in 1996 to upgrade an existing oil structure in the Chirag development field. This was an existing 2 off 10 pile Jackets, which was refurbished to western standards.
This structure Chirag 1 had new topsides fabricated in Baku and Europe and with a completed weight of 8500 tonnes was set onto the jacket in 1997, using the lifting barge ‘Azerbaijan’. First Oil was on November 7th 1997.
Later, more development projects of BP Exploration started developing and Azeri, Chirag, Shah Deniz projects have big capacity involving many international and local companies into oil production process.
The big number of companies from different countries is busy in Baku. The political life of our country becomes different and interesting. After disintegration of Soviet system during 1990s, Azerbaijan became independent and began to plays significant role in the revitalization of the region on the basis of relationship with many Western and Eastern countries.
After re-establishing of republic structure, Azerbaijan Government tries to fit to the developed democracy countries, and gets good knowledge from the experience of their legislation system.
As a young government we have many difficulties as well.
But for the War with Armenia our Country has some political and economical difficulties such as problems of refugees the quantity of which gets approximately more than 1 million. It makes migration and supplement problems the resolution of what is difficult for developing country.
Same as 100 years ago main development concentrated in capital. Even with big Construction development projects, new production investments the unemployment percentage in Azerbaijan Republic is still high.
Magnificent efforts for development of Tourism gave big impact in development of hospitality services in regions with opening of resort/entertainment centers.
There are some reforms and projects in the financial and banking system, in the sphere of education agriculture etc. what can put a positive basis into the future development of our country. As a citizen n we expect many things from the new era of Azerbaijan Republic and hope to see the better times of our country.