OREANDA-NEWS. September 21, 2010. SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev and Company staff representatives attended the ceremony of commissioning of repaired and newly-purchased vessels within the events dedicated to the professional holiday of oil industry workers. SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev visited overhauled Gurban Abbasov crane vessel and got acquainted with the established conditions. The Company President was informed that the vessel was built at Finland’s Turku shipyard in 1984-86s and delivered to Azerbaijan in 1988.

The ship is 141 meters long and 54 meters wide. It has loading capacity of 1,200 tons and its crane has lifting capacity of 600 tons. The facilities installed at Gurban Abbasov allow to purify and utilize 60 tons of sea water, 30 cubic meters of contaminated water and 120 kg of hard waste. The Gurban Abbasov crane vessel has been modernized to create favorable conditions for 150-200 people to work and live on it. Mr. Rovnag Abdullayev pressed the red button symbolizing the commissioning of the Gurban Abbasov crane vessel.

According to SOCAR President, there are 4 crane vessels in the world and 2 of them are in Azerbaijan. Afterwards, SOCAR management attended presentation ceremony of Caspian Power supply vessel. The Chinese-made Caspian Power vessel is 72.5 meters long and 17 meters wide which has a 12,240 horsepower engines. The vessel will serve the platforms on Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli offshore oil fields and the Shahdeniz gas field in Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. Nearly 90-95% of the vessel staff will be comprised of Azerbaijani experts which is of great importance in local human resources development.

The Caspian Power vessel is the 12th vessel imported for oil and gas offshore operations in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea under the agreement signed in 2008 between Caspian Sea Oil Fleet – BUE Caspian alliance and BP-Azerbaijan. The alliance has spent over USD 300 million to purchase these ships during this period.

These ships will remain at SOCAR's disposal for use in the Caspian Sea in future. One more supply vessel is planned to be brought to Baku after some months. New vessels will be used in drilling operations to be carried out by Total Azerbaijan and for services to BP-Azerbaijan.