Azerbaijan to Boost Oil Shipments via Georgia
Azerbaijan plans to boost oil shipments via Georgia this year thanks to a deal with Dragon Oil to pump its Turkmenistan-produced crude, Azeri state energy company SOCAR said on on Feb. 25.
Crude and refined oil products from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are shipped to Georgia's Black Sea ports of Batumi, Supsa, Poti and a terminal in Kulevi, which is owned by SOCAR.
Some are shipped across the Caspian Sea in small tankers, unloaded in the Azeri port of Baku and then sent by rail to Georgian ports for re-export to the Mediterranean.
"SOCAR Trading signed a contract with Dragon Oil on the shipment of around 72,000 tonnes of oil from Turkmenistan to Kulevi," Vagif Aliyev, head of the foreign investment department at SOCAR, told reporters.
He added that SOCAR's regional transport company Cross Caspian had signed a five-year contract with Tengizchevroil - a Chevron-led Kazakh upstream venture - on bigger volumes of oil.
"We hope that shipments through Kulevi will start in 2010," he said.
The Kulevi terminal, 51 percent-owned by SOCAR, started operation about two years ago and ships refined oil products produced by SOCAR in the Caspian Sea. It is able to handle tankers of up to 80,000 tonnes.
"According to optimistic estimates, Kulevi might ship 3.0-3.5 million tonnes of oil and oil products in 2010. It shipped 2.0 million tonnes of oil products in 2009," Aliyev said.
Shipments through Kulevi became more attractive after Tengizchevroil stopped using the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from 2010 because of disagreements on tariffs, Aliyev said.
Tengizchevroil used the route via Azerbaijan and Georgia for its shipments from the giant Tengiz oilfield in Kazakhstan in 1997-2001, shipping 6 million tonnes of oil in that period.
Since then, it had used the pipeline to Russia's port of Novorossiysk.
Chevron has an 8.9 percent stake in Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan consortium and a 50 percent in Tengizchevroil, which exploits the Tengiz oilfiled in Kazakhstan with estimated reserves of 1.3 billion tonnes of oil.
Source: Reuters |
