Baku, Azerbaijan, May 5

By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:

The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan is expected to ship 170,000 metric tons of oil from the Russian port of Novorossiysk in May 2015.

In total, over 2.34 million metric tons of oil will be shipped from the Novorossiysk port in May.

SOCAR delivers the oil produced at its own fields, as well as the oil of joint ventures and operation companies operating at Azerbaijan's onshore fields to Novorossiysk. Oil is delivered to the port via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline operated by SOCAR.

SOCAR distributed the export volumes between the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline (1.02 million metric tons) and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (530,000 metric tons) in 2014.

As the Russian side decided to terminate the intergovernmental agreement on the oil supply via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, oil pumping via it was suspended in February 2014. As a result, oil was redirected to the BTC.

However, SOCAR and Russian Transneft signed a new agreement on oil transportation via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline for one year. Despite the signing of a new commercial agreement, SOCAR continued pumping some oil through the BTC. For 2015, the parties agreed that SOCAR will transport 1.7 million metric tons of oil via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline.

SOCAR has been operating Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline since 2008. The company took over the operatorship from Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC - headed by BP).

The schedule of oil shipment from the Novorossiysk port for Mayhas been provided by the Energy Intelligence Group agency.

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