Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 8
By Vagif Sharifov – Trend:
BP Azerbaijan company, which has a 35.78 percent stake in the development project of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of oil and gas fields, said it has no plans to supply its Azeri Light oil via the Odessa-Brody pipeline.
The company made the remarks commenting on recent statements by Ukrtransnafta PJSC, an operator of Ukraine’s oil transportation system, on the technological readiness for the start of the transit of Azerbaijani oil through Ukraine to the countries of Central Europe.
“BP doesn’t need the capacities [of the Odessa-Brody pipeline],” BP Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey Gordon Birrell told reporters. “I cannot speak for the other participants of the [Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli] project. BP has definitely no plans to supply oil via this pipeline.”
According to the message, Ukrtransnafta PJSC said in September that the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline with a capacity of about 14 million tons per year, the oil loading platform at the Brody station and the oil terminal in the Yuzhne port are ready for oil transit from Azerbaijan through Ukraine to the countries of Central Europe, in particular, to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.
"Ukrtransnafta’s appropriate infrastructure is technically ready for transportation of the Azerbaijani oil,” the company said, Ukrainian Independent Information Agency (UNIAN) reported in Sept. “The Odessa-Brody main oil pipeline has been filled with Azeri Light technological oil and it is ready for supplying oil to the Brody station.”
BP is the operator of the project on the development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of fields. The shareholders of the project are: BP - 35.78 percent, Chevron - 11.28 percent, Inpex - 10.96 percent, AzACG - 11.65 percent, Statoil - 8.56 percent, Exxon - 8 percent, TPAO - 6.75 percent, Itochu - 4.3 percent and ONGC - 2.72 percent.
The oil is exported from the ACG block via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Supsa pipelines, as well as by rail to the Georgian port of Batumi.