SOCAR touts foreign investments

BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 2 (UPI) -- The State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic awarded oil trader Vitol SA a tender for 600,000 barrels of oil for March delivery as Baku touts foreign investments.

Vitol SA, one of the three largest oil traders in the world, won the March 30 tender for the delivery of crude from Russia's Novorossiysk port in the Black Sea, the Azeri Press Agency reports.

SOCAR announced a series of tenders available for spring delivery recently available through the vast network of pipelines in Azerbaijan. Those networks carry reserves from the Shah Deniz and Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli fields.

Meanwhile, Trend Capital reports that SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said the foreign contracts in the Azeri oil and gas sector totaled around $30 billion.

"Presently, 85 percent of Azerbaijan's oil and 70 percent of its gas are produced with foreign companies," he said.