Nobel Oil Services UK, a London-registered company providing offshore drilling, construction, procurement and oilfield services in Azerbaijan and the Caspian region, has appointed Jorgen Peter Rasmussen as chairman of its board of directors and Ali Batu as chief executive officer, the company said in a press release on February 18.

“Nobel is on a mission to become the leading national oilfield services company in Azerbaijan, the Caspian region and beyond. The company will achieve this objective by developing its people and delivering services to the highest international standards. The opportunities in this region are tremendous and Mr Batu and I look forward to working with the board, our clients and our associates to deliver on that promise”, a press release quoted Rasmussen as saying.

The appointments will boost Nobel Oil Services’ “strategic vision and business strategies”, the spokesperson said. Nobel Oil Services UK is a group of energy-related companies specialised in providing of drilling, engineering and project management, maintenance, procurement and enhanced oil recovery services.

“With changes in top management the company is in the process of updating its strategy and short-term and long-term goals. Readjusting to the changes in the industry requires a multifaceted approach,” a spokesperson said, adding that the appointments will benefit the company by improving “financial performance”. The spokesperson didn’t provide financials for the company prior to the appointments.

Nobel Oil plans to grow “organically” through its current business practices and “inorganically” by adding new businesses, the press service said of the company’s growth plans. “In oil services it is all about developing the personnel and the skills, competences and experiences in the company to be able to deliver the services to international standards. This means we will be focused on hiring, developing and challenging our international staff, and use a combination of international partners, acquisition and research and engineering to develop the right technology,” the spokesperson for the company tells bne IntelliNews. As a leading oil services company Nobel is the “first” and “preferred” choice for all oil companies operating in Azerbaijan, the spokesperson explains.

In October, 2015 Nobel established a joint venture GVL (Glensol Valvecare Limited Denholm Valvecare Limited and a contract with BP on valve maintenance in Azerbaijan and Georgia. “The contract underpins a five year cooperation with BP and cover the provision of services of up to 100,000 valves in various projects”, including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (6,648 valves), the Sangachal Oil Terminal (38,412 valves), East Azeri and West Azeri offshore platforms (28,542 valves), Chirag-DWG (15,923 valves), the spokesperson said.

Socar-AQS, Nobel’s another joint venture with Azerbaijan’s national oil and gas company Socar, is providing services to Azneft production unit of Socar, such as well design and planning, drilling of oil and gas wells, drilling of directionally deviated wells, drilling of horizontal wells, well completion, well workover, sidetracking, drilling of multilateral wells, casing running.

Nobel Oil, owned by Nasib Hasanov, a “private oil and gas entrepreneur and philanthropist” from Azerbaijan, has acquired a 7.59% “non-operated interest” in the Maersk-operated Maclure oil and gas field from Shell. Nobel Oil has a 20% stake in the offshore Umid gas condensate field in the Caspian Sea, with the remaining 80% held in Azerbaijan’s national oil and gas company Socar. The field increased output to 1mn cubic metres (cm) in 2015 from 630,000 cm per day in 2014.