ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, Dec. 4
By Huseyn Hasanov – Trend:
Switzerland’s Vitol, the world’s biggest oil trader, will begin exporting fuel oil and diesel from Turkmenistan via the Russian port of Novorossiysk in December, Trend reports referring to Reuters, which cited the unnamed sources in the field of trade.
“In December the first, test shipment (via Novorossiysk) is planned to be sent,” a source familiar with the trading firm’s plan said. “If everything goes well, next year they expect to supply around 500,000 tons of oil products.”
Turkmenistan has been selling most of its oil products to Azerbaijan or exporting it to the Black Sea market via Georgian ports.
Some traders have also exported oil products via the Volga-Don shipping canal in Russia but that is typically closed from November through April due to ice.
According to two traders, Vitol won a tender in May to buy oil products from the Turkmenbashi refinery in Turkmenistan this year, but it took the company months to negotiate logistics.
“They had to negotiate with Russia’s railways, customs, fix vessels to cross the Caspian Sea,” one of the traders said.
Shipping oil products from Turkmenistan to the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea is quite complicated as it involves loading at Turkmenbashi port, crossing the Caspian Sea, offloading in Russia’s Makhachkala port then transporting the products via rail to Novorossiysk, where they will be offloaded for seaborne exports, according to traders.
According to Russian railway data seen by Reuters, 20,000 tons of fuel oil and 25,000 tons of diesel produced in Turkmenistan are scheduled to be transported from Makhachkala railway station to Novorossiysk port this month.
Oil products from the refinery are normally sold in annual tenders. The main buyers are Maddox, a trading firm affiliated to SOCAR, Dubai-based Turkmen Petroleum, Coral Energy and several other trading firms.
Turkmenistan plans to bring the capacity of the oil refining industry in 2030 up to 30 million tons. At this stage, the country annually produces approximately 10 million tons of oil, a great part of which is refined at local refineries.