Ecology

OGUZ OPERATING COMPANY ISSUES EIA

Oguz Operating Company released its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on Oguz prospect for public discussion at the Rashid Behbudov Theater Thursday. The hearings were attended by representatives of the State Committee on Ecology, SOCAR, NGOs, Academy of Sciences, as well as independent ecologists.

The company spokesman Unal Bayram briefed the listeners on the exploration drilling EIA and pinpointed its key hazard aspects: the coating that formed as a result of drilling, tentative use of well and the likelihood of oil-spills. According to him, the EIA has been executed in accordance with world standards.

Oguz Operating Company has forwarded the package to the state committee on ecology, which will consider it within a month.

Representatives of NGOs and independent ecologists involved in the discussion voiced their proposals as to some conflicting aspects in the document.

UN, GEF PLEASED WITH WORK DONE

The three-year work on the first project of climatic information, to be forwarded to a conference within the UN framework convention on climatic changes, has completed in Azerbaijan. Last Wednesday, the project was discussed at the state hydro-meteorological committee by UN and Global Ecological Foundation (GEF) representatives.

Director of the national center on climatic changes Isa Aliyev told Azernews that around 20 state-owned organizations and NGOs were involved in the GEF-funded project.

BP DEVELOPING ECOLOGICAL THINKING OF SCHOOLCHILDREN

BP presented two editions to the Baku Ecological Lyceum Thursday: books dedicated to such ecological problems as domestic wastes and global warming. The editions are intended to contribute to the development of ecological thinking and involve everyone in an ecological movement.

A BP spokesperson Sabina Ismayilova told the Lyceum students at the ceremony that the books contain suggestions prepared by international ecological and academic entities and approved by the majority of world countries.

OIL WASTE MANAGEMENT SITE BEING SET UP

Scottish "Total Waste Management International" (TWMI) has won the BP-announced tender for recycling oil industry waste on the Saranja site in Garadagh district of Baku, BP’s health, safety and environmental manager Grant Widrin told vice-premier, chairman of the State Committee on Ecology Ali Hasanov Thursday.

BP manager Mike McCartney told the vice-premier that a potable water pipeline and a sewer system with purification facilities are being laid in the Shongar village of Garadagh.

Mr. Hasanov described the oil waste management site as particularly important for the country, saying it would be the first in the entire Caspian region.

CASPIAN IS NO NORTH SEA

Not all foreign companies engaged in oil production in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian fully observe environmental policy requirements, as most of them simply dump drilling cuttings into the sea, according to the president of the International EcoEnergy Academy professor Fagan Aliyev.

He said such activities of foreign companies is explained by the fact that to transport the wastes to the shore requires additional expenses, which, in its turn, raises the cost of oil.

Although there is an oil waste management site in the Garadagh district of Baku, none of the foreign companies except BP uses it. "Specialists of foreign companies often refer to the North Sea as an example, where they release the wastes right into the sea. But unlike the North Sea, Caspian is an inland body of water and any pollution of it threatens with an ecological catastrophe", Prof. Aliyev said.