Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 23
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
Azerbaijan's State Oil Company (SOCAR) yet has no plan to export the oil, produced on its own from Azerbaijan's land and sea deposits, via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, a source in company told Trend Feb. 23.
The SOCAR source said the oil volumes for 2015 are, so far, intended to exported via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, but the plans can change.
Earlier, SOCAR and Russia's Transneft signed an agreement, under which SOCAR transports 1.7 million metric tons of oil, produced by it, via the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline.
SOCAR in 2014 exported some 932,160 metric tons of oil via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline versus 1.75 million metric tons of oil exported in 2013.
Last year, SOCAR distributed the export volumes between the Baku-Novorossiysk (1.02 million metric tons) and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (530,000 metric tons) oil pipelines.
In 2014, due to Russia's decision to terminate the intergovernmental agreement on the oil supply via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, the oil pumping through it was suspended in February 2014, and as a result the oil was redirected to the BTC.
Soon, however, SOCAR and Transneft singed a new one-year agreement for the transportation of oil via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline.
Despite the new commercial agreement, SOCAR continued pumping a part of oil through the BTC.
BTC's construction started in April 2003. It was filled with oil on May 18, 2005. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Company (BTC Co.) was established on Aug. 1, 2002 for the operation of the BTC.
BTC Co. shareholders are: BP (30.1 percent), AzBTC (25 percent), Chevron (8.9 percent), Statoil (8.71 percent), ТРАО (6.53 percent), Eni (five percent), Total (five percent), Itochu (3.4 percent), Inpex (2.5 percent), ConocoPhillips (2.5 percent) and ONGC (2.36 percent).
The pipeline's capacity is 1.2 million barrels of oil per day.
SOCAR has been operating the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline since 2008. The company took over this authority from the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC - headed by BP).
The Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline is 1,147 kilometers long: the length of its Azerbaijani section is 231 kilometers and the Russian section is 916 kilometers.
SOCAR said the pipeline was filled with oil in October, 1996. Its maximum capacity stands at 105,000 barrels per day.
Edited by SI
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