Capturing commercial-scale power from Azerbaijan's rich sea winds – seen as central to its ambitions to shift from offshore oil & gas production towards renewables in the coming decades – could call for partnerships with international clean-energy developers similar to the "Contract of the Century” signed with a cadre of Western petro-giants in 1994, according to one of the Caspian nation's top officials, Report informs citing an article by Darius Snieckus published by Recharge.

Deputy energy minister Elnur Sultanov, who is also CEO of the COP29 climate conference being held in Azerbaijan's capital city Baku later this year, suggested the heavy capital demands of building offshore wind farms meant the government would be open to “something like power production sharing agreements” with European developers willing to accelerate the build-out to more than 7GW that the World Bank has "roadmapped’ for 2040.

“Strategic partnerships will always be very important to us [in the energy sector],” Sultanov said, noting the recent tie-ups with Abu Dhabi-headquartered Masdar and the UK’s BP, both of which are building utility-scale renewables projects in Azerbaijan. “Something like [a PSA] could be emerging around Caspian offshore wind because these projects are so big, so challenging and we are landlocked so we have no connection the [wind sector’s] global supply chains.”