Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 13 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
Russian's Lukoil oil company will transport the first crude oil from the Yuri Korchagin field located in the Russian sector of the northern Caspian Sea, to the port of Novorossiysk through Makhachkala, Lukoil press release said.
The 8,000DWT tanker Caspian Stream has been reportedly loaded with the first crude oil cargo.
The crude will be transported by tankers to Makhachkala and then through Transneft pipeline to the port of Novorossiysk.
The crude carriers are expected to be loaded once every ten days.
Russian oil company Lukoil is considering at least four routes of oil transported from the Caspian fields under development, Dmitry Dolgov, the company spokesman, told Trend earlier.
"We have at least four options for oil transportation from Caspian fields. These are the CPC (Caspian Pipeline Consortium), the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, delivery to our Volgograd refinery and Baku-Novorossiysk," Dolgov said.
Dolgov said that this route was chosen for the first shipment. But it does not mean that oil will continue to go through only this route.
"The reason is that conditions and conjuncture change. Then we can change the route depending on economic advantage," he said.
On Sept. 23, 2010, the Russian state subcommittee on customs-tariff policy approved the proposal to introduce a concessionary duty on oil exports from the North Caspian fields. It is assumed that these benefits will take effect from 2011.
Oil production at the Yuri Korchagin field began in April 2010.
The oil field named after the former Chairman of the Board of Directors of LUKOIL Yury Korchagin, was discovered in 2000. It is located in the Russian sector of the Caspian Sea, on the Shirotnaya, 180 km from Astrakhan, and 240 km from Makhachkala. The sea depth - 11-13 m. Crude oil extraction in the North Caspian Sea, carried out by LUKOIL-Nizhnevolzhskneft, began in April 2010. The 3P deposit reserves exceed 270 million boe.
Oil, extracted from the field with the help of marine offshore oil rig, is transported via the subsea pipeline (diameter - 300 mm, length - 60 km) to a 28,000dwt floating storage facility, made fast to a LUKOIL's berth.
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