Caspian Energy (СЕ): Mr. Aliyev, what successes did the company gain over the past years?

Chingiz Aliyev, General Manager, Caspian Marine Services Limited: Our Company is operating in the Caspian region. 

А number of vessels of various types were provided to us for temporary use by the Caspian Sea Oil Fleet with the aim to be utilized in different projects of leading world companies. Despite relatively young аgе of our company, since January 2011 the Caspian Marine Services has already been accredited by Global Group Certification (GGC) that has been auditing our company’s compliance to international marine management standards every year. By using the vessels of the Caspian Sea Oil Fleet and bringing them up to the international standards our company does not just rest оn its achievements. 

We have signed a contract for building five cargo-passenger vessels in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Now, all these vessels: «Araz’, «Khudaferin’, «Gulustan’, «Gobustan» and «Giz Galasi’, successfully work for State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR). We have taken this step with aim to replace the old passenger boats of more than thirty years age with new and modern ones.

CE: To what degree have the conditions and the characteristic of new vessels been changed? 

Chingiz Aliyev: We have created more comfortable conditions for passengers who are taken to platforms. Another important fact is that the speed of these boats has increased threefold, while the fuel and lubricants consumption decreased significantly as with modern technologies this is quite real. The process of passengers’ delivery to the work places and back after completion of work shifts is accelerating. All this shows that acquisition of new vessels enables us to get rid of such problems as extra costs for an unplanned repair, or, what is worse, failure of mechanism while at sea, which may cause the fatal risks both for crew and passengers.

 In addition to vessels mentioned above, we have acquired two small size port tugs CMS-1 and CMS-2 to support dredging units CSD-450 and CSD-500.

CE: What projects is your company currently involved in?

Chingiz Aliyev: At the moment our company is taking part in the big dredging project of the under construction shipyard which is expected to be completed in the second part of the current year. Furthermore, pipelay vessel “Israfil Huseynov”, crane vessel “Azerbaijan”, diving vessel “Tofiq Ismayilov” and barge “STB-1”, engaged in the oil project “Chirag”, are performing operations for oil company BP. 

CE: What importance does the company attach to issues of training of specialists? 

Chingiz Aliyev: We attach main importance to local human resources. It is not a secret that foreign companies operating in Azerbaijan require high qualification, conformity with safety regulations and knowledge of the English language. In this regard, our company arranges trainings in accordance with international conventions and the English language courses for employees. We aim at 100% nationalization of the company staff. We arrange regular trainings for the personnel as the specific character of our work requires arrangement of certain trainings for working on ships. The crews of the vessels take courses for reception of certificates required by the Maritime Administration of Azerbaijan. 

In general, according to the plan, the work with the purpose to bring the local personnel’s compliance with international standards and accelerate the nationalization of the human resources is carried out on regular basis.