| Wednesday, 15 September 2010 11:31 |
Against the backdrop of global trends and volatile world oil prices, the Azerbaijani government has defined an oil price of $60 per barrel for the purpose of planning its state budget in 2011...
As a result of adjustments to the 2010 budget forecast, the oil price has also been increased from $45 to $60 per barrel. The Finance Ministry must submit the budget packages for next year and the next three years to the cabinet before Sept. 15. The 2009 budget forecast was formed in accordance with an oil price of $70 dollars per barrel, but from 2008 onwards, oil prices declined on world markets to $40- $50 per barrel. However, in recent days, the price of light Azerbaijani crude oil produced on the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field (ACG), has been trading at about $77 per barrel and the average price of oil is expected to be $70-$75 per barrel over the course of 2010. Earlier, Finance Minister Samir Sharifov said that "our income is reducing not only because of a fall in oil prices on the world markets, but also a decline in production by AIOC." The volume of oil production from ACG should be one million barrels a day, but the actual amount is less. In 2010, Azerbaijan is projected to produce 52.45 million tons, of which some 44 million tons will be Azeri Light produced from the ACG and 8.45 million tons of oil produced by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) from its offshore and onshore fields independently. Based on SOCAR's forecast, oil production is expected to be 53.6 million tons in 2011, 45.4 million tons of which is produced by ACG and 8.2 million tons by SOCAR. Even in 2008, forecasts for macroeconomic indicators in 2009 were prepared on the basis of three scenarios [pessimistic, average and optimistic forecasts] taking into account changes in oil prices on the world markets.
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