Vagit Alekperov Quotations

In the Soviet Union I was the head of all oil production. And you know in the Soviet Union, you didn't get that job unless you were really worth it.

It is impossible to divide the interest of a country and a company that works on its soil.

I am also one of those persons who were transformed, who grew out of the Soviet system and transformed myself into the new Russia.

I'm not an actor who appears on the stage and gives people advice on how to live or what to do and entertains them. It is not my specialty.

Politics are close to me, but there are different ways of participating in politics.

I can't afford to be indifferent to politics, but I don't have personal ambitions.

We believe we are ready to buy heavily on the European and US markets, and we have been considering a number of large facilities that we are planning to buy.

We're constantly on the look-out for new projects and monitoring the market. We'd like to bolster our core assets, including exploration, refining, processing and retailing assets in the regions where we have a strong presence.

Last year, we commissioned a new gas deposit, and our agreement with Gasport has worked.

Today, crude oil is sold at the price of the Urals brand, and in terms of quality we have been losing big money. Given the oil directly reaches the final buyer, all that money will stay in Russia.

We think that we are close to making considerable acquisitions in the European and American markets.

I am mainly speaking about oil refineries. It allows us to switch from retail sales of crude oil to working with our end-users.

The biggest engineering companies, like Schlumberger, Halliburton and others, have technology they spent billions of dollars developing.

Gas consumption is growing everywhere.