Azerbaijan, Baku, August 21 / Trend E. Ismaylov /
The pumping of Urals oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan (BTJ) oil pipeline will not reflect on the quality of oil shipped from Turkish Jeyhan, the head of SOCAR (the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) Rovnag Abdullayev told journalists on Monday.
Currently SOCAR and Russian Rosneft are negotiating for the transportation of Urals oil to a volume of five million tons a year through the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline in a reverse method.
In the event of the negotiations being successful and the economic appropriateness of the considered operations, part of oil will be refined in Azerbaijan whilst another supplied through BTJ and shipped from the Jeyhan terminal in the Mediterranean Sea. The evaluation of efficiency and the negotiations are planned to complete by late 2013.
According to Abdulayev, SOCAR put a condition before Rosneft to supply in reverse mode, oil with a sulphur content of less than one per cent through the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline which will not reflect the quality of oil transported through the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan oil pipeline and will allow the provision of shipping from the Jeyhan terminal for Azeri Light oil.
In turn, transportation of part of the Urals oil through BTJ will provide for the processing of Azeri Light oil in Italian and German refineries where Rosneft has its share.
As Abdullayev said, BTJ is an effective oil pipeline from which Azerbaijani Azeri Light oil is pumped, as well as oil from Central Asia and in the case of being appropriate, part of Urals oil supplied through the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline, will also be pumped.
According to the agreement, in case of implementation of the entire programme, the benefit will be shared between the parties, Abdullayev noted.
At the beginning of last week the agreement on cooperation and main conditions of oil supply were signed between SOCAR and Rosneft.
According to the information of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, the agreement reached by the parties, will allow the companies to expand the geography of their activities, get access to new markets and resources and optimise the supply of oil and oil products by joint use of the existing infrastructure.
Besides, the parties agreed on cooperation in exploration and mining projects in Azerbaijan and Russia, as well as in the spheres of marketing, sales of oil and oil products. For this purpose a joint venture will be founded on a parity basis. Agreement was reached on the joint use of some infrastructure projects and in particular, pipelines and terminals.