Caspian Energy (CE): How many years has the company been operating in the Azerbaijani market?
Chris Mott, General Manager, Fugro Survey Ltd (Caspian): The Company was founded in 1962 in Holland as a small geotechnical site investigation company for onshore developments. Since then it has grown both organically and by acquisition of other companies into the large organization that it is today. The equity within the Group is traded on the Amsterdam stock market as it is a publicly owned company.
Fugro has been active in Azerbaijan since 1993. There were formerly two companies here working in competition with each other, Fugro and Racal. Since 2003 they have been working as one Fugro company.
CE: How do you evaluate the results of company’s activity since the beginning of 2012 and what are the plans for coming year?
Chris Mott: In terms of operations here in Azerbaijan, we are on target to meet the profit plan that we set for ourselves this time last year for 2012. During the fourth quarter companies like ours create profit plans. We are finalizing our profit plan for 2013. We detail what we will invest, what revenues we anticipate, the clients we hope to work for etc.
When we create our profit plan we look into the future, we have to imagine what will happen in terms of the projects that will be available to us. We have to forecast what our success rate will be in winning projects, and then we have to look at the way in which we think we will perform in terms how much it will cost us to do the work and how much revenue we will get for doing the work. We are on track to perform as we expected in 2012.
CE: Are there any certain main goals set for 2013?
Chris Mott: The main goal is to set a plan in accordance with the business climate and corporate guidelines. We strive to deliver value to our shareholders who expect return on their investment in terms of growth in the value of the share price and also the dividend. We have some business development targets that we will have to meet. We also have some clients with whom we would like to do more business. We recognise that the best way to deliver profit is to satisfy our clients by providing them with true value.
CE: What are the main lines of activity in the Caspian-Black Sea region?
Chris Mott: We don’t really operate in the Black Sea. There are other Fugro operating companies there, because the Black Sea is connected to the Mediterranean Sea. In the Caspian area we have been active in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. But the biggest area by far for us is Azerbaijan.
CE: What importance is attached to environmental and safety issues in the company?
Chris Mott: We place a large degree of importance on both of these issues, environmental and safety. We really don’t differentiate between them in importance. We operate in accordance with our integrated management system which is accredited against international standards for safety, environment and quality. We have recently undergone and successfully passed a recertification audit by Moody. We also actively have environmental and safety campaigns to do everything that we can do to ensure that our people have a safe environment in which to operate and they themselves operate safely within that environment. We don’t want anyone to injure themselves or cause other people to be injured. At the moment we have a safety program called iPower. iPower is the power of me watching out for myself and others. When we are working together as a team, doing something that is potentially hazardous, the iPower initiative means that we will all be looking out for our own and each other’s safety, be aware of risks and hazards and prevent any unsafe actions. It is all about people going home to their families at the end of the day having done a good job and done it safely.
CE: Which foreign markets are of interest to Azerbaijan? Which spheres of economy are mainly of interest to you in these countries?
Chris Mott: This Company works mainly in Azerbaijan. I regard Azerbaijan as my domestic market. We have for us, relatively minor operations in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.
We are very heavily engaged in the offshore oil-gas market. We have very little activity outside of that sphere.