British oil giant BP's chief executive for exploration and production, Andy Inglis, met Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev yesterday.
During their meeting Inglis said there had been great development in Baku since his first visit 15 years ago.
He said that Azerbaijan had achieved all its goals and made significant achievements since the signing of the Contract of the Century in 1994 to develop Azerbaijan's offshore oilfields.
Inglis hoped that cooperation between BP and Azerbaijan would continue to develop.
Ilham Aliyev, in turn, said that last year Baku held a series of events to mark the 15th anniversary of the Contract of the Century.
He said that all the country's achievements were based on a successful energy policy.
The president said that “the diversification of our economy and implementation of social programs would be impossible if we did not pursue the energy policy started 15 years ago".
The head of state also expressed the hope that successful energy cooperation between Azerbaijan and BP would continue to expand.
Dubbed the Contract of the Century by the then president, Heydar Aliyev, the contract is a production sharing agreement signed by the Azerbaijani government with a consortium of foreign oil majors to develop the Azeri, Chirag and deepwater portion of the Gunashli (ACG) oilfield in the Caspian Sea. The project operator is BP.
ACG's overall reserves are estimated at 900m tonnes of oil and 140bn cu.m of gas. Some $21bn have already been invested in the bloc and over 1bn barrels of oil have already been produced.