Azerbaijan, Baku, 30 October / Trend corr. E.Ismayilov/ The Middle East Petroleum plans to double oil cargo shipment through the Kulevi port in Georgia. President of Azersun Holding Abdolbari Goozal said the shipment would be improved to 500-600,000 tons per month from the current 250-300,000 tons.
"The volume will be achieved within a year and a half," said Goozal. The company will also actively cooperate with the Batumi oil terminal.
"The Batumi terminal will be operated in the same capacity as Kulevi. Our goal is to operate both terminals," he said.
Formerly Goozal said the Middle East Petroleum plans to tranship about 3mln tons of oil cargo via Kulevi this year. A part of the transported oil cargo will be from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and a part from Azerbaijan.
Kulevi terminal can accept up to 168 cisterns simultaneously. The tank battery's volume totals 380,000 cu m. The port accepts the tankers with the deadweight up to 100,000 tons. Port's capacity is expected to be increased to 15-20mln tons within 2 years.
Transhipment capacity of the Kulevi totals 10mln oil cargo per year, including 2mln tons of oil, 3mln tons of diesel fuel, 4mln tons of fuel oil.
SOCAR Georgia, co-founded by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) - 51%, Petro-Trans FZCO - 32.7% and Ivan Chkhartishvili - 16.3%, owns the Kulevi terminal.
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