The Azerbaijan State Water Resources Agency and bp have signed a cooperation agreement to work together to define, select and implement potential water projects to help improve the water situation in the communities, Azernews reports.

It is expected that the collaboration will initially focus on three potential projects.

The first project aims to establish a new water supply system in the Goychay district. The system will be designed to collect, settle and clean floodwater making it suitable for land irrigation. It is intended that the system will have a capacity of cleaning over 500,000 cubic meters of water annually enough to irrigate up to 100 hectares of land.

The second project will aim to restore two underground water-supply sources in the Tovuz district. After restoration the two sources will be able to provide up to 2.5 million cubic metres of fresh water annually enough to meet household consumption and land irrigation needs of about 15,000 community members.

The third project aims to set up 25 water systems - for drinking, irrigation and sanitation - in the Kurdamir, Ujar, Agdash, Yevlakh, Goranboy and Samukh districts. The project will cover about 20 rural communities with a total population of approximately 25,000 people.

The projects are planned for two years with a total cost of over $2.6 million.

Overall, since the start, bp itself and together with its co-venturers in the joint ventures that bp operates in Azerbaijan, has spent about $110 million on social investment projects in this country.