Caspian Energy (CE): How would you assess the activity of the recently created SOCAR-FUGRO LLC?
Christopher Mott, General Manager, SOCAR-FUGRO LLC: I am very enthusiastic about the future activities of the joint venture. Having a formal association with SOCAR is facilitating introductions to organizations and people that we hope to do significant business with in the future.
The summary annual report for the Fugro Group for 2013 states that Fugro activities continue to grow. At the end of 2013 the group employed 12,591 staff. Here in Azerbaijan we employ 40 people. The Group lists 27 important contracts carried out by Fugro in 2013 worldwide. Two of them were in Azerbaijan. Therefore in 2013 40 out of 12,591 employees generated 2 of 27 important contracts for Fugro.
CE: Will the new SOCAR-FUGRO LLC bring and deploy new equipment and technologies here?
Christopher Mott: It will do provided that there is work in Azerbaijan for these technologies to do. Under the new joint venture we have the ability to bring in any of the Fugro technologies available around the world. At the moment we are in the process of mobilizing for some work onshore in Sumgait. We are doing a geotechnical and environmental survey over a Brownfield site there, in order to evaluate its environmental conditions. It is an ex-industrial site and it is reported that there are significant levels of pollution on the site. We are arranging to bring to Azerbaijan some environmental sensors that are unique to Fugro. This new technology enables the environmental condition of the site to be quickly determined and quickly and accurately assessed at relatively low cost. These techniques pose little or no risk to the people doing the investigation from the potentially polluted environment.
CE: Could you please provide general information about the progress of implementation of the two major contracts in Azerbaijan which you mentioned above?
Christopher Mott: One of the contracts was an offshore geophysical survey using an autonomous underwater vehicle which involved surveying a large area of the seabed for geophysical hazards. The survey was done in advance of the area being developed as a new gas field for Azerbaijan. As to the second contract, it was an onshore geophysical and geotechnical site investigation for proposed new refineries in Azerbaijan. It was a combined project and SOCAR was one of our clients.
CE: What could you tell about the work carried out within the framework of the Chirag oil project?
Christopher Mott: It is my understanding that operations on the Chirag Oil Project will be completed by the end of the May. Our involvement on the COP project involved providing services on the pipelay barge, the diving support vessel, the construction support vessel and some of the support vessels that helped the pipelay vessels to lay anchors for duration of the project. We supplied surveyors and engineers. We supplied remotely operated vehicles and ROV personnel. Our services enabled the pipelines to be placed on the seabed in the right place. We enabled the pipelines to be installed without damaging the existing pipelines. We were able to create records of exactly how they were installed on the seabed. A baseline statement of the condition of the newly installed pipelines has been created so that when they are inspected in future there will be some existing information that can be used to compare the current condition with the original condition.
CE: What plans does SOCAR-FUGRO LLC set for this year?
Christopher Mott: The plans of the company are to maintain a significant presence in Azerbaijan, to continue to do things it did formerly as Fugro Survey Limited (Caspian) and to look for opportunities to widen its service offering and to work in new markets when the opportunities present themselves. I understand that this is a very generic statement but it is all we can say at this early stage. Speaking about opportunities in new markets, I did not mean geographical markets but technical markets and sectors of industry.
CE: What kind of social projects are you doing here?
Christopher Mott: Some of our Azeri personnel have been sent to training in UK. 10% of our local workforce has undergone training overseas in the last 12 months.
Every year we review our equipment inventory. If we have for example personal computers that are surplus to requirement or not sufficiently powerful to run our advanced software programs but are yet still serviceable, we will make those available free of charge to charities. We are supporting a charity in Azerbaijan called PCs4Kids. We donate computers to them so that they can give them to children to become computer literate.
We offer English language training to any of our employees who want it and we encourage all of our employees to utilize the online training facilities available from Fugro Academy, our global training resource. We have an ongoing safety campaign for our people. It is called iPower. “I”, being I and also “eye”, the “power” is the power of me watching out for myself and other people. The concept is that we do very technical work that is intrinsically hazardous and which is often done in hazardous environments. There is always the potential of injury or damage or harm to the environment. The iPower campaign is designed to raise everyone’s awareness of the danger not only to themselves but to everyone they are working with. If they see something or suspect something or have any concern, they are empowered to express that fear or concern and Fugro will stop whatever it is doing and it will not start again until everyone is feeling safe to proceed with the work. We extend this empowerment not only to the people we employ but to everyone in our workspace.
