Recently, The USA Tribune reported that Azerbaijan has become the main supplier of gas to Turkey. Just 10 years ago, such a forecast could only cause scepticism among the global players in the oil and gas market. However, one of the latest statements by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev testifies to the country's increased role in the world energy market.

“While a year ago Azerbaijani gas was in the 4th or 5th place in the Turkish market, nowadays we are in the first place, which is very important for us and for Turkey, since gas ensures the energy security of any country. Today gas is supplied to Turkey from the brotherly country, and additional measures will be taken to increase its volumes,” Ilham Aliyev said the other day.

Just two decades ago, Azerbaijan could not even imagine in the dreams that someday the country would become one of the largest gas exporters to one of the largest gas markets in Europe. However, in just twenty years the situation has changed: both within the country itself and the role of Azerbaijan in the world arena has increased, and not only in the oil sector.

Baku has been known as one of the centres of the world oil industry since the late 19th century. However, being first a part of the Russian Empire and then the USSR, Azerbaijan could not dispose of oil revenues.

Azerbaijan began to extract oil in industrial scales in the middle of the 19th century. In the middle of the twentieth century, it was in Azerbaijan that they first began to extract oil from offshore fields.

The first step towards the establishment of Azerbaijan as one of the world's oil centers, was the signing on September 20, 1994 of a contract known as the "Contract of the Century" for the development of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli complex of fields. This contract became the basis for Azerbaijan's oil strategy, which was laid down by Heydar Aliyev. It is important that this particular contract opened a gate to foreign investors to the oil and gas resources of the Caspian region.

With this contract, an economic miracle took place in Azerbaijan. The proceeds from the implementation of the contract exceeded $ 150 billion.

It is reminder that while in the mid and late 1990s, SOCAR was exclusively an Azerbaijani company with a little world level of production, then after a couple of decades it became a significant player in the world oil market. The history of oil contracts shows that initially SOCAR had a nominal 10% in production sharing agreements, including in terms of financial costs reduction.

Today SOCAR is ready to participate in parity shares in the development of fields: an example is the Abheron and Karabakh fields, which are being developed jointly with Total and Equinor. Moreover, SOCAR independently began to develop the Umid and Babek gas fields.

“The work in the Umid-Babek projects, where SOCAR takes part independently, is progressing as planned. These are also very promising projects, and we expect to increase the investment potential of these projects and production, since we need energy resources for internal needs, while our export potential will be ensured. There are other promising projects as well. In general, I can say that although the 'Contract of the Century' was signed in 1994 and many contracts have been signed since then, 26 years have passed, but the interest in the oil potential of Azerbaijan in the world is not decreasing, but on the contrary, is growing”, Aliyev said.

Over these years, SOCAR has grown into a large oil and gas company conducting businesses in several countries – Switzerland, Romania, Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey, UAE, Russia and other countries.

Turkey holds a special place in SOCAR's investment projects, where the company acquired a large Petkim petrochemical complex, built STAR oil refinery, and is developing transport and logistics line of business.

According to the company's latest audit report, in 2019 SOCAR's turnover amounted to $ 50 billion. It is worth of noting, that 93% of this turnover falls on operations in foreign markets.

In addition to oil and gas businesses, SOCAR is actively operating in the chemical complex, becoming the largest exporter in the non-oil sector. This is mainly contributes by the activities of SOKAR Methanol and SOCAR Polymer.

It is essential to add that SOCAR is also massively funding culture and sports. The company takes care of its employees. For instance, the average salary in SOCAR exceeds $700, which is twice higher than the national average. In addition to that, the company's management allocates funds to meet social needs of the company's employees and provides them with apartments.

"Oil sector workers have always enjoyed great respect in Azerbaijan. This is the case today; the work of oil workers is real heroism. The profession of oil miner is respected and at the same time risky, dangerous, and I want to repeat once again that their work is real heroism," said Ilham Aliyev, who himself worked for SOCAR for nine years.

"Oil workers take on a huge role in the successful development of our country. Today, the bulk of the country's economy is associated with the oil and gas sector, and it will be so for many years to come. We don't mean that other industries are not developing - they are, but no matter how they are developed, they will not be able to generate in the near future the same income as oil and gas do,” Aliyev said.

It is clear that if it were not for the will to implement the 'Contract of the Century' and the oil strategy in general, it would be difficult to achieve such impressive results.