Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 1
By Maksim Tsurkov – Trend:
Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR continues to pump oil via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline as scheduled, SOCAR told Trend Aug. 1.
“Pumping of August volumes of oil started this morning [Aug. 1], and we haven’t received any information on its suspension so far,” the company said. “Maybe at some stage the transportation will stop for a while, but the pumping is currently underway in a scheduled mode, the pipeline is running, we haven’t received any applications from Russia’s Transneft company.”
SOCAR will pump about 170,000 tons of oil via Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline in August 2016, according to the plan.
Earlier, Russian media outlets reported citing the official representative of the Transneft company Igor Demin that the pumping of oil through the pipeline was suspended due to the earthquake in Azerbaijan.
An earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale hit an area in Azerbaijan's Imishli district on approximately 08:47 (local Baku time, GMT+4) Aug. 1.
The Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline is 1,147 kilometers long. The length of its Azerbaijani section is 231 kilometers and Russian section - 916 kilometers. The pipeline was filled with oil in October 1996, according to SOCAR. Its highest capacity stands at 105,000 barrels a day.
A new agreement between SOCAR and Russia’s Transneft company, according to which SOCAR will transport 1.3 million tons of oil produced by it at onshore and offshore fields via Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in 2016, was signed in February 2016.
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