State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan Reserves Decreased by USD 3.6 Billion in 2015

State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan published a report regarding its 2015 financial activities. According to the report, the reserves of the fund decreased by $ 3.6 billion in one year, and currently amount to $ 33.5 billion, reports  “Turan” news agency. In 2015 the fund’s budget incomes amounted to 7.3 billion, which is 8.8 billion less than 2014.The budget expenditures last year amounted to 8.7 billion (12.8 billion in 2014). Not once has there been a budget deficit since the establishment of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (2000).

The Fund had a deficit of $ 1.4 billion in 2015. The decline in foreign currency reserves of the Fund is related to the depreciation of foreign currencies and other assets (real estate, gold) as reduction of value has occurred in the direction of asset investments. The agency reported that in 2015 the allocations to the state budget from the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan “SOCAR” decreased by $ 1.5 billion. The company reported this on its website (fins.az): Fitch Ratings has downgraded Azerbaijan’s Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-‘. The Outlooks are Negative. The issue rating on Azerbaijan’s senior unsecured foreign currency bond has also been downgraded to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-‘. The Country Ceiling has been revised to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-‘ and the Short-term foreign-currency IDR has been downgraded to ‘B’ from ‘F3’.