Azerbaijan is a partner of Transneft and the company is always will always be glad to continue cooperation, Sergey Grigoryev, the Vice President of Transneft, a Russian company told Trend special correspondent in Russia.
Commenting on perspectives of the work of the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, Grigoryev said that Azerbaijan has never implemented the terms of intergovernmental agreement envisaging pumping of 5 million tons of oil. The figure varied between 2 million and 2.5 million tons. At times we had doubts in connection with Azerbaijans capability to fulfill the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline with consideration of commissioning of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main export oil pipeline, he informed.
According to Grigoryev, Transneft appealed to Azerbaijan to clarify the validity of companys doubts. However, the Azerbaijani partners assured us the doubts were groundless, and even increased the volume of oil transported via the Baku-Novorossiysk to 3.2-3.5m tons, he noted.
It testifies for large perspectives of our cooperation and our company is always ready for open dialogue, Grigoryev emphasized.
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) annually produces 8.9 million tons a year in its fields. 6.4 million tons of the total production is delivered to two Baku-based oil refinery plants, while the rest 2.5 million tons is pumped via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline. Over the last time the AIOC, which is involved in the oil production from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli fields, actively pumps oil via the northern route due expansion of oil production in the area. Even after the exploitation of the BTC, the AIOC maintained the oil pumping via the Baku-Novorossiysk n the high level 400,000 tons a month.
The SOCAR said that the company stated to AIOC on its readiness to pump 250,000 tons of oil a month via the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline starting from August, while the question on pimping of SOCARs oil in such volume is still to be defined. The AIOC plans to pump 400,000 tons of oil a month in July and August.