SOCAR State Oil of Azerbaijan Republic : IBM and SOCAR announce a joint venture

15 January 2018

SOCAR and IBM (NYSE: IBM) announce establishment of a joint venture called Caspian Innovation Center LLC for the purpose of building and operating a competitive analytics and delivery center to provide IT, business transformation and business consulting services in Azerbaijan, the Caspian Region and other countries. The SOCAR-IBM joint venture will offer its' services to SOCAR and other companies in the region, in order to facilitate digital business transformation and boost the efficiency of production in the energy industry and across sectors. The transformation program will bring the best-practice processes and technology from IBM to Azerbaijan and region. The joint venture will set a basis for practical solutions and IT-related analytics in Azerbaijan, thus essentially contributing to the development of the human capital.

This strategic partnership will engage SOCAR's industry expertise and IBM's digital, cognitive computing and data science capabilities in building differentiated industry solutions and competencies in the region.

Rovnag Abdullayev, president of SOCAR said, 'Digital business transformation has become an essential element of successful management of industrial operations. SOCAR's unique experience in Azerbaijan, the first country of industrial oil production, will be merged with IBM's advanced cognitive intelligence and analytics capabilities. This synergy can potentially expand to play a role of regional hub, facilitating digital transformation across other industries. That would boost the job creation in high-skill, high-paid areas, effectively stretching our contribution to Azerbaijan's human capital development beyond just oil&gas; industry.'

SOCAR is expected to gain dramatic efficiency and flexibility with the development of IT processes and operations to analyze more data faster than before, thus supporting intelligent ways of the exploration of oil and gas fields, while reducing the environmental footprint. The cooperation is expected to help IBM establish stronger presence not only in Azerbaijan but in the whole Caspian region and beyond.

'The establishment of the SOCAR-IBM joint venture will help to accelerate the digital transformation of the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, while contributing to the development of the global energy industry,' said Erich Clementi, Senior Vice President, Global Markets, IBM.

Based on the reached agreement, the SOCAR-IBM joint venture may expand its' activities into other business intensive areas, such as in new geographies or with various customers.

IBM is a global enterprise operating in over 170 countries. Today IBM is focusing on key growth areas, such as cognitive solutions, cloud computing, security, and brings innovative solutions to a diverse client base to help solve some of their toughest business challenges. In addition to being the world's largest IT and consulting services company, IBM is a global business and technology leader, innovating in research and development to shape the future of society at large. IBM's prized research, development and technical talent around the world partner with governments, corporations, thinkers and doers on ground breaking real world problems.

For more information on IBM Services, please visit: https://www.ibm.com/services/

SOCAR is a major energy company in Europe. While primarily focused on the economic interest of the people of Azerbaijan, it is an international integrated company and manages a number of operations abroad. The company fulfills many functions among which exploring oil and gas fields, producing, processing, and transporting oil, gas, and gas condensate take a big part. SOCAR also markets petroleum and petrochemical products across a number of international markets. SOCAR operates in various countries, such as Romania, Switzerland, Georgia, Turkey, Ukraine and Azerbaijan, including trading activities across the globe.

For more information, please visit http://www.socar.az/socar/en/home