Ilham Aliyev: Our gas reserves will last for at least a hundred years, and not only for us, but also for our customers

We have created highly diversified refining capacities. Today, SOCAR's oil refining potential exceeds 30 million tons. And thanks to the recent acquisition of Italiana Petroleum, our refining capacities in the Mediterranean have grown from 13 to 23 million tons. Thus, we supply not only oil and gas, but also petroleum products. We also export electricity, petrochemical products, and energy derived from renewable energy sources. This is one of the important areas we are focused on. And, as I mentioned earlier, countries should be assessed not by the presence of oil, but by how they use revenues from these resources and how they invest in renewable energy sources.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev stated this during his speech at the official opening ceremony of the 31st Baku Energy Forum.

"Thanks to our gas reserves, which will last us for at least a hundred years — and not only us, but also our customers — we actually have no need for any other sources for electricity generation. But our responsibility dictates that we must invest in renewable energy sources. And that is what we are doing, creating together with our partners very favorable conditions for investors — more or less the same as those created for oil companies in the early 1990s. Now the same level of cooperation and investment-friendly approach is being applied to companies in the renewable energy sector," the head of state added.