This Selected Issues paper on Azerbaijan Republic reports that the government has made substantial progress in dealing with energy-related subsidies. The domestic market for oil products has been tightly regulated by the government since Azerbaijan gained independence. Azerbaijan is largely self-sufficient in oil products because of its substantial endowment of exhaustible mineral deposits and existing refining capacity. Although Azerbaijan is self-sufficient in oil products, it needs to import about 3 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas annually to meet its domestic consumption demand of 7 bcm.