The first contract between the Government of Azerbaijan and the International Oil Consortium was signed in September 1994. Today, another twenty-one contracts, for oil field engineering in the Caspian Sea, have also been signed. Out of the $7B of foreign funds invested in the country’s economy over the past 5 years, about $5B have been directed to oil industry development. So far, oil extraction volumes are rather low, and it is being conveyed well mainly via the pipelines Baku — Supsa (Georgia) and Baku — Novorossiysk (Russia), each of which are only capable of up to 10M t throughput per annum. But as early as 2010—2012 total oil extraction volume should reach 60M t a year.

In 2001 Turkey has realized 15 % of exports and 36 % imports from her ports in total of nationwide export/import to the Members of Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) countries. In accordance with 2002 statistical data of Republic of Turkey Foreign Trade Undersecretaries, Turkey has realized an amount of 3.4Bn USD of export and 6.5Bn USD of import with BSEC countries.