Kazakhstan, Astana, 11 March / Trend D. Mukhtarov /
The Kazakh KazTransOil Company is in talks with Azerbaijan and Georgia on reducing tariffs for the transit of oil by rail to increase its supplies from three million tons in 2012 to five million tons in 2013, according to the general director of KazTransOil JSC Kairgeldy Kabyldin.
"We are currently considering increasing volumes of transported oil in the Baku-Black Sea direction to five million tons in the current year," Kabyldin said.
He recalled that according to the 2012 results, Kazakhstan transported nearly three million tons of oil further from the Tengiz field through the Caspian Sea to Baku via the Baku-Black Sea route."Transit countries of Azerbaijan and Georgia, through whose territories the railway crosses to the Batumi sea port, have raised the tariff on oil transit. And now we are negotiating with them to reach commercial agreements concerning the amount of the tariff, so that this direction is competitive compared to other routes of our oil supplies to world markets," the head of the company said.
According to him, if the parties fail to agree, the company expects to at least maintain the current level of transportation at no less than three million tons of Tengiz oil transits per year via the Caucasian corridor.