Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 21 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
Belarus plans to receive oil from Azerbaijan in March 2011, the Belarusian news agency BelTA reported with reference to Belneftekhim Deputy Chairman Bronislaw Siviy.
He said the country will receive Azerbaijani oil in March 2011 on the basis swap supplies will. "We'll get the Azerbaijani light via the pipe," he said.
The Belarusian, Venezuelan and Azerbaijani sides have agreed to swap supplies. Specifically, the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) is interested in acquiring Venezuelan Santa Barbara oil to sell on the U.S. market. SOCAR would supply oil to Belarus and receive the same amount from Venezuela.
Negotiations currently concern 5 million tons per year. Working on the basis of replacing Venezuelan oil with Azerbaijani oil will save on transportation costs.
Regarding the Azerbaijani oil, Siviy noted that this option is beneficial for Belarus. "We'll get Azerbaijani light crude oil through the pipe and in principle, we have a good economy for export, " he said.
The implementation of operations under this project provides for delivering Azerbaijani oil on a CIF basis to Ukrainian ports, and does not relate to its further transportation, a senior SOCAR representative said earlier.
Belarus and Ukraine have signed an intergovernmental agreement on the delivery of oil to Belarusian refineries. The issue of the further transportation of Azerbaijani oil will be decided not by SOCAR.
As the basic variant of Azerbaijani oil shipments from Ukraine to Belarus, is considered the possibility of transporting oil by the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline through its start in the averse direction.
The Odessa-Brody oil transportation project sought to diversify oil supplies to Ukrainian refineries and develop the country's transit potential. The pipeline's construction was completed in May 2002. Its trunk has a length of 674 kilometers, with a pipe diameter of 1,020 millimeters. The capacity of the pipeline and the terminal is 9-14 million tons per year during the first stage.
Over the two years since the pipeline's construction, Ukraine unsuccessfully negotiated the transportation of Caspian oil in the forward direction. As the country was unable to receive any concrete proposals from companies, the Ukrainian government authorized the use of pipeline for transporting Russian oil in the reverse direction in late June 2004.