Sangachal Hosts OPEC Secretary General

BY GUIVAMI RAHIMLI June 23, 2023 6:01 pm

Haitham Al Ghais, OPEC Secretary General, visited Baku on 18-21 June, holding talks with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov. He emphasized that President Aliyev has played an extremely constructive and important role in the OPEC+ format from the first day of its establishment and stability was maintained in the global oil market thanks to the activity in this format.

Haitham Al Ghais noted that Azerbaijan has consistently been one of the highest-performing participating countries in terms of production adjustments and has been fully implementing decisions that we have been jointly taking together.

Taking into account the increasing demand for energy as a result of the growth of the world economy, the recent reduction of investments in this field has caused some concern.

They noted that the application of new technologies is of particular importance in terms of reducing environmental damage in the field of traditional energy.

With demand picking up in the global oil market, the energy sector would require hefty investment by international oil companies as well. Given this, to see first-hand oil and gas developments in this region, it was a great honour for bp to host OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais, showing Azerbaijan’s most important strategic asset, the Sangachal terminal during his visit to Baku.

Sangachal terminal is the “beating heart” of the region’s oil and gas industry and the biggest bp-operated onshore asset worldwide.

The BTC oil and SCP gas pipelines, as part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which starts from the Sangachal terminal, provide incremental non-Persian Gulf, and non-Russian oil and gas supplies, and add to global supply diversity and energy security.

bp’s business update presentation at the Caspian Energy Centre drew a good overview of how we run such a complex facility and pipeline operations, which play an important role in energy security.

Shah Deniz 2 and SGC, a system of mega-pipelines, crossing six transit countries, today is one of the largest and most complex endeavours ever undertaken in the global oil and gas industry, the biggest project outside the military sector. It provides a new source of energy to Europe, ensuring greater diversification, increasing the security of supply, unlocking many isolated markets, and creating new opportunities for growth.

The bus tour to the terminal operations site, Shah Deniz area and BTC head pump station gave the head of OPEC a wider understanding of the nature and scale of bp activities in the region.

At the end of the bus tour, we took our distinguished guest to the combined control room to give him a clear picture of our operations at this biggest strategic hub for the Caspian, which unlocks offshore reserves and delivers hydrocarbons to world markets.

OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais shared his impressions and gave extremely positive feedback on what he had seen at the terminal.

As a token for visiting Sangachal terminal, bp presented to OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais “Mysterious Tales of Tabriz” book, one of the bp funded cultural projects which has left a footprint in the new history of Azerbaijan and a souvenir carpet with the company logo.