Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend S.Aliyev, V.Sharifov / A high-ranking representatives of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) stated that Azerbaijan may consider the proposals of Kazakhstan on the construction of a new pipeline from Baku to the Black Sea to export large volumes of Kazakh row oil to the world market.
"If the infrastructure [which exists in Azerbaijan] is not satisfactory for transporting Kazakh oil and the ports wish to ship more, we do not exclude that we are prepared to consider Kazakhstan's proposals on construction of new pipelines within the territory of Azerbaijan," the SOCAR representative said.
The Executive Director of 'KazMunayGaz', Arman Darbayev, said during the second Eurasian Energy Forum organized by KazEnergy at the beginning of September that if necessary, Kazakhstan can construct new pipelines in Azerbaijan and Georgia (from Baku to the Black Sea) to transport large volumes of oil to the world market.
Currently the Baku-Novorossiysk, Baku-Supsa, and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipelines and the Azerbaijani-Georgian railway transport oil through the territory of Azerbaijan.
Darbayev said in Astana that in the first stage, 500,000 barrels of oil per day are intended to be transported through Kazakhstan Caspian Transport System via Azerbaijan and 1.2mln barrels per day in the second stage (56mln t per year).
A number of the foreign shareholder-companies in the development of Kazakhstan's field of Kashagan are also investors in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project. However, the BTC's capacity may be unsatisfactory to transport Kazakh oil and "if necessary we may construct a new pipeline from Baku to the Black Sea," Darbayev said.
Touching on the issue of delivering oil with tankers to Baku, Darbayev said that Kazakhstan considers that the capacity of the tankers should equal 60,000t to ensure effective transportation of the hydrocarbons.