SOCAR, an Azerbaijani state owned energy company continues to acquire stakes in strategic assets in foreign countries in line with its strategy to expand production footprint. It has bought a 10% stake in Israel’s natural gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea called Tamar.

Lebanon too could be energy independent if it were to stop the Hezbollah and develop peaceful energy pursuits. Lebanon’s Exclusive Economic Zone is a part of the Levant Basin: according to the USGS estimates, Lebanon could hold 850 bcm of offshore natural gas reserves and 660 million barrels of oil.

The US oil and energy giant Chevron already operates and holds a 25% stake in the Tamar gas field in the Med Sea. Other partners in the Israeli gas reservoir include Isramco, Tamar Investment 2, Tamar Petroleum, and Dor Gas.

Since Israel first found natural gas fields off its Mediterranean coast more than a decade ago, and since the country has emerged as a gas exporter. The natural gas operations have put the country on a path to energy independence in a region with few natural resources.

Israel has been exporting gas from the Tamar field to its neighbor Jordan since 2017.

This is not the first attempt by SOCAR to enter the Israeli natural gas market but this is SOCAR’s first major investment in the Mediterranean Sea. The oil firm’s vision moving forward it so continue seeking strategic assets around the world to expand its energy portfolio.

In 2023, SOCAR joined a consortium including British multinational oil and gas firm BP and NewMed Energy to bid for licenses to explore and discover offshore natural gas fields in areas adjacent to Israel’s Leviathan field, one of the world’s largest deep-water gas discoveries.

Within the new framework, on January 31, 2025, an agreement was signed with Union Energy for the acquisition of 10% effective ownership in the Tamar field, located offshore of Israel, one of the largest and most strategically important gas fields in the Mediterranean basin.

“With this step, SOCAR has begun implementing investment in upstream projects in the Mediterranean region. The agreement was signed subject to certain conditions being met, including customary regulatory and other approvals,” announced the Azerbaijani government.

SOCAR will continue its efforts to acquire stakes in strategic assets in foreign countries in the future. It is a major source of income for the authoritarian regime in Azerbaijan.

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We laugh when the biggest oil nations of the world hold climate conferences, but the UN and how it “thinks” is no less confusing when the latest UN climate change event COP29 is hosted in Azerbaijan, opening today in Baku. The Human Rights Watch organization report that Azerbaijan is carrying out a vicious attack on government critics, independent groups, and media and that crackdowns got worse months before Azerbaijan hosted COP29, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which opens today. (Earlier this year Azerbaijan celebrated its Islamic architectural heritage win months before destroying an Armenian church).

Human Rights Watch issued a report “‘We Try to Stay Invisible’: Azerbaijan’s Escalating Crackdown on Critics and Civil Society,” which documents the Azerbaijan’s efforts to decimate civil society and silence its critics. The authorities have arrested dozens of people on what HRW says are politically motivated, bogus criminal charges.

“The Azerbaijani government’s contempt for civic freedoms is putting independent groups and critical media on the path of extinction,” said Giorgi Gogia, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This is not the image the government should be projecting of itself on the eve of COP29.

“It is not too late for the government to improve its reputation by freeing imprisoned critics and immediately ending the use of spurious charges against civil society, but it needs to act now.”

Related: the bees of Azerbaijan go hightech

According to the group the authorities aggressively targeted three of the independent online news platforms that remain in Azerbaijan, including Abzas Media and Toplum TV. They arrested and criminally prosecuted at least 12 of these 3 platforms’ media professionals and several other affiliated individuals. They have hacked social media accounts and blocked websites. They have also arrested reporters with other outlets and leaders of several unregistered groups, as well as trade union activists and others who dared to criticize or protest government policies.

Related: how a billionaire destroyed Baku

Among those arrested and in detention is veteran human rights defender Anar Mammadli, who in the weeks before his arrest co-founded a climate justice initiative with the aim of advocating civic freedoms and environmental justice in Azerbaijan ahead of COP29. He is awaiting trial on spurious smuggling charges.

In July 2023, the authorities arrested a renowned economist and anti-corruption activist, Gubad Ibadoghlu, who specializes, among other things, in revenue transparency in the oil and gas sector. Currently under house arrest, Ibadoghlu is awaiting trial on bogus charges related to counterfeit currency production and extremism and faces up to 17 years in jail if convicted.

Under international law, the Azerbaijani government has obligations to protect the rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association. This includes the ability to form a legal entity to act collectively in a field of mutual interest.

The European Court of Human Rights has issued numerous judgments finding that the Azerbaijani government’s failure to register independent NGOs violated the right to freedom of association. In at least one of these cases, the court found that authorities restricted rights with the “ulterior purpose” of punishing the applicants for their human rights activities.

Related: Offshore wind deal between Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan

“Through a combination of unjust detention and restrictive NGO rules, the Azerbaijani government is trying to eradicate civil society,” said Andrea Prasow, executive director of Freedom Now. “States and UN officials should urgently call on Azerbaijan to immediately and unconditionally free arbitrarily detained activists and commit to upholding human rights at COP29 and beyond.”

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The Azerbaijani Ministry of Energy and ACWA Power of Saudi Arabia held a groundbreaking ceremony for the 240 MW wind power plant that ACWA will build in the Asian country, with an investment value of $300 USD million. 

ACWA builds, operates and invests in renewable energy plants and becomes the only renewables company listed in Saudi Arabia. It priced its IPO at the top of the range last year, successfully raising $1.2 billion USD from investors, the biggest since, but dwarfed by, Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion IPO.

Renewable energy sources are important for Azerbaijan. However, except for hydropower, few renewable energy sources are used. One of the best considered alternative sources for the small Asian country is wind energy. 

The Saudi wind energy project represents the first and largest foreign investment made in Azerbaijan’s renewable energy sector to date and contributes to the country’s target to generate 30 percent of its energy through renewables.

By Q4 2023, and when it’s up and running, the project will contribute an estimated 3.7 percent of energy to Azerbaijan’s total national grid capacity, powering 300,000 households while offsetting 400,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.

The ceremony was attended by Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Minister of Energy of Saudi Arabia, Parviz Shahbazov, Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Balababa Rzayev, President of “Azerishiq OJSC” and Mr. Mohammad Abunayyan, Chairman of ACWA Power, along with senior executives, none who appear to be women in the image supplied, above.

ACWA is the driving force behind NEOM, a new “green” city in Saudi Arabia, on its coast, which is likely to become a parable of how not to develop cities of the future. Read here for my commentary.

One of ACWA’s main activities is investing in desalination technology. This approach to providing clean water is highly energy intensive, with brackish water runoff destroying marine life. 

The company has also invested in solar energy in Morocco. Read Green Prophet’s story here.

Wind Energy in Uzbekistan 

ACWA Power is an investor in other post-Soviet Muslim states such as Uzbekistan, where it is developing multi-billion-dollar power projects.

In December 2021, the Saudi company finalized an agreement to develop the 100-MW Nukus wind project. Located in the Karakalpakstan region, the $108 M USD Nukus wind farm is the first publicly tendered wind project in the country and was won by the ACWA Power through a competitive bidding process.

The scheme is only the fourth in the Central Asian state for the company, which is also developing the 1,500-MW combined cycle gas turbine Sirdarya project, which is expected to meet 15% of the country’s power requirements upon completion.

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Zaha Hadid Architecture won an international competition to design the center in 2007. She told Dezeen that it’s her most important design to date.

Located in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, the Heydar Aliyev Center is designed to host the country’s cultural programs and activities while making a concise break from the rigid, formal architectural language prevalent in the Soviet Union.

“The design of the Heydar Aliyev Center establishes a continuous, fluid relationship between its surrounding plaza and the building’s interior,” Hadid’s team write in their design brief for Dezeen.

“The plaza, as the ground surface; accessible to all as part of Baku’s urban fabric, rises to envelop an equally public interior space and define a sequence of event spaces dedicated to the collective celebration of contemporary and traditional Azeri culture.”

Related: Comparing Qatar stadium to a vagina is “ridiculous” says Zaha Hadid

In order to achieve that fluid style which appears to push out of the surrounding urban fabric like a mountain, the design team led by Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu built a steel space frame and clad the exterior in overlapping glass-fiber reinforced concrete panels.

“Fluidity in architecture is not new to this region,” they add.

“In historical Islamic architecture, rows, grids, or sequences of columns flow to infinity like trees in a forest, establishing non-hierarchical space. Continuous calligraphic and ornamental patterns flow from carpets to walls, walls to ceilings, ceilings to domes, establishing seamless relationships and blurring distinctions between architectural elements and the ground they inhabit.”

Daylighting may offset some energy use, but frankly, from an environmental perspective, this building has virtually nothing to offer. From an engineering, design and maybe even especially from a cultural perspective, all accolades are definitely worthy.

Photos via Iwan Baan

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The New York Times recently profiled the billionaire, who is one of the country’s most powerful men. With close ties to president Ilham Aliyev, he is uniquely positioned to realize a sudden mad idea he had while flying from Dubai to Baku to build the artificial Khazar Islands on the Caspian Sea. And though he claims this is not the case, the plan sounds eerily like Dubai. Except worse.

While Dubai has damaged both the desert and the Arabian/Persian Gulf with its rapid coastline development, Ibrahimov also plans to take down part of the country’s cultural heritage with thousands of shiny new apartments, 55 artificial islands, eight hotels, an airport, a snazzy yacht club and a Formula One racetrack.

Some of these mosques, mansions and palaces date back to the 7th Century, according to NYT. But Ibrahimov’s 24 year old assistant gushes that all of it – including the street vendors – will be gone by the time the so-called vision is realized by 2022.

The plan’s biggest selling point, according to Ibrahimov, the building that is supposed to draw scores of wealthy investors to a country bordered by Armenia and Iran, is a 3,445 foot skyscraper called, rather unimaginatively, Azerbaijan Tower.

He will live in a penthouse at the top, he has said, a goal that instantly reminded me of my 14 year old cousin’s naive declaration that he wants to be so rich one day that he will have his own skyscraper in Manhattan.

Ibrahimov is 40 years older, but he is no better able to keep his ambitions in healthy check than my young cousin.

When he got off the plane on which he hatched his USD 100 billion McCity idea, he didn’t head down to the local planning office. Nor did he contact his nearest environmental protection agency. Instead, he went straight to his developers and had blueprints drawn up.

We would be willing to eat our words if this is not the case, but the haste with which the “vision” was put into place suggests that environmental due process was perhaps overlooked.

Which is interesting since Ibrahimov admitted that The Palm smells bad as a result of poor environmental management when that artificial island was built in Dubai. Artificial islands disrupt the natural ecosystem in which they are built, not to mention the mountain that is being destroyed to provide the necessary “foundation” of rock and soil.

Like Abu Dhabi, Azerbaijan got rich with oil. But so far, the country’s leadership appears to possess none of the humility regarding environmental pressures that the Gulf country has demonstrated.

And this is dangerous. An inland lake, the Caspian Sea is home to a dazzling variety of species, but already it is beset with pollution problems – largely thanks to Azerbaijan’s outdated oil refineries.

Then there is the not-so-slight issue of rising water levels. The Caspian Sea has risen about 2.25 meters since 1978, according to UNESCO:

In addition to the danger posed to oil fields (e.g.in Kazakstan and Azerbaijan), the sea-level rise results in changes in: water regime, hydrochemical regime of river mouths, dynamics and chemical composition of groundwater, structure and productivity of biological communities in the littoral and in river mouths, sediment deposition patterns, pollution by heavy metals, petroleum products, synthetic organic substances, radioactive isotopes and other substances.

This doesn’t bode well for artificial islands.

:: The New York Times

Image of Maiden Castle in Baku, Azerbaijan, Shutterstock

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