BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 7. The largest UK oil and gas company, bp, shocked energy markets two years ago when it stated the world had already passed peak oil demand, Trend reports via Finance Brokerage.
Azerbaijan's main oil producer, bp, has shut down its oil pipeline to Georgia's Black Sea coast for June due to concerns over the safety of oil tankers in the Black Sea.
The company described the closure of the Baku-Tbilisi-Supsa pipeline as "temporary" in a written response to queries from Eurasianet.org.
Besides, bp confirmed that the pipeline had previously been closed for extended periods from March 15 to the end of April, and then for the whole of May, but it didn’t say when or if it expects the pipeline to open again.
According to data released in May by Azerbaijan's Energy Ministry, the country produced 11.1 million tons of oil over the first four months of this year, of which 77 percent was produced by bp and the rest by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR).
The Baku-Supsa pipeline is much smaller, capable of carrying only around 7.2 million tons a year and last year carried only 4.2 million tons.
The ban on imports of Russian crude announced by the European Union on May 31 is expected to lead to an increase in demand for non-Russian crude oil and to a surge in oil prices.