Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company SOCAR and US ExxonMobil energy company have signed a memorandum of understanding “focused on developing Azerbaijan’s oil and gas potential,” Azerbaijani president’s website reported on Friday.
The agreement was signed during the one-on-one meeting between President Ilham Aliyev and Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy in Washington this week. The memorandum of understanding is the second agreement reached between two energy giants this year. The first such agreement was signed during the ExxonMobil Vice President John Ardill’s visit to Baku in June. The meeting at that time focused on the company’s long-standing involvement in Azerbaijan’s oil industry, including its participation as a shareholder in the Azeri–Chirag–Guneshli project, which accounts for a majority of Azerbaijan’s petroleum exports. ExxoMobil also holds 6.79% stake in the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, which transports Azerbaijani energy resources to European markets via Turkey.
This latest document between SOCAR and ExxonMobil was inked during Aliyev’s visit to Washington where he signed a US-brokered peace declaration with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the presence of US President Donald Trump. Apart from the joint declaration, Azerbaijan and Armenian leaders also signed separate agreements aimed at boosting relations with the US. Azerbaijan’s Economy Ministry said that they additionally discussed Azerbaijan’s position as a ‘reliable energy partner’ and the prospects of the Middle Corridor, a commonly used term for a route connecting Asia to Europe.
