25.06.10 Caspian Focus GE invests $6 million in new Caspian services centre

Map of Caspian sea region

General Electric Oil & Gas, (GE Oil & Gas), has opened a new global services facility, south of Baku in the Republic of Azerbaijan, to encourage economic growth in the Caspian region. The facility worth, $6 million, will employ 14 local personnel, and will provide GE's equipment repair and maintenance services for new and existing customers in the Caspian region.

“The new $6M investment Baku facility is crucial to the continued growth of our Global Services operations in the Caspian Sea region. The site provides a strong localized presence to help our customers grow their businesses with advanced engineering services and expertise, while also offering increased capacity to meet anticipated growth,” said, Global Services Leader, GE Oil & Gas, Neil Saunders.

The new centre contains two warehouses, two heavy-duty overhead cranes, an external storage facility and purpose built office space. A wide-range of GE drilling and production equipment will be maintained and repaired at the centre, including subsea wellheads, controls, connectors and subsea trees. GE has a vested interest in the Caspian oil and gas industry and says it expects to see major increases in offshore production over the next decade.

Talking about GE's continued presence in the territory, Chief of Project Investment Department, State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, (SOCAR), Intigam Sadykhov said,“We are delighted with GE's continued investment in the Caspian Sea region. The new state-of-the-art facility will be of great benefit to the oil and gas industry in the region and, indeed, to the local community.”

To find out more about GE Oil & Gas please visit GE's web site ,which you can find here.

For more news and expert analysis about the Caspian region, please see Caspian Focus or visit the Menas Associates Blog.