The State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) received the first bonus payment in the amount of USD 450 million from the new Agreement signed among the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and foreign extractive industry companies on the “Joint development and production sharing for the Azeri and Chirag fields and the deep water portion of the Gunashli field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea” on January 29, 2018.

According to the contract, the foreign investors will pay overall a bonus of USD 3.6 billion to SOFAZ over the next 8 years.

The participants of Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli project are Azerbaijan (ACG) Limited, BP Exploration (Caspian Sea) Ltd., Chevron Khazar Ltd., Exxon Azerbaijan Ltd., Inpex Southwest Caspian Sea Ltd., Itochu Oil Exploration (Azerbaijan) Inc., ONGC Videsh Ltd., Statoil Apsheron AS. and TPAO.