The body of deceased Azerbaijan Energy Minister Natig Aliyev, who died in Turkey on Friday, is set to arrive back in the capital Baku on Saturday, the country’s Energy Ministry said.
The 69-year-old energy industry veteran was hospitalized on 3 June after suffering a cardiac arrest in Baku, from where he was transferred to Istanbul Florence Nightingale Hospital, according to the ministry’s statement.
Aliyev served as energy minister from 2005. Before becoming a minister he was head of state oil company Socar in 1993 and was actively involved in negotiations of the first contract for development of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oilfields with Western energy giants that paved the way for co-operation between them and the former Soviet republic by the Caspian Sea.
BP-led ACG still is the major oil producer in Azerbaijan, supplying three-quarters of the country’s annual oil production.
Born in 1947, Aliyev graduated from Azerbaijan State Oil Academy. After serving in different oil and gas organisations, in 1984 he went on to supervise energy issues at the Central Committee of Azerbaijan Communist Party.
Although they shared the same surname, Aliyev was not related to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.
