LUKOIL said it had acquired 15.5 percent interest in the Shah Deniz natural gas project in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea from PETRONAS for $2.25 billion.

Since its independence from Soviet rule in 1991, Baku’s relations with Tehran have never been especially warm – its close ethnic and political ties with Turkey, Iran’s most important rival, almost certainly lie behind that.

In September alone, the non-oil exports rose by 75.2 percent year-on-year to $224.7 million, while the country's total export amounted to $1.7 billion.

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 3.6 percent in January-August this year from a year earlier mainly backed by the growth in the non-oil sector.

Azerbaijan shipped 754,000 tonnes of oil via Russia in January-September, up from 330,000 tonnes shipped in the same period last year.

The resource-rich ex-Soviet country is now scheduled to produce 647,000 bpd in October.

The quantity of oil shipped through Georgia to Turkey declined to 148.9 million barrels from January to September this year, down from 163 million barrels in the same period last year.