BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 15
By Nargiz Ismayilova – Trend:
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) plans to send another batch of Azerbaijani oil to Belarus in late July, Deputy Head of Public Relations and Events Department at SOCAR Ibrahim Ahmadov told Trend.
“The volume of this batch will reach about 650,000 tons of oil,” Ahmadov added. "It is planned to be sent on July 30-31 from the Georgian port of Supsa."
Earlier this year, from March through April, SOCAR Trading (a subsidiary of the Azerbaijani State Oil Company) supplied four batches of oil (about 335,000 tons in total) to Belneftekhim state concern through the port of Odessa and the Odessa-Brody pipeline.
Three batches with a total volume of about 250,000 tons were shipped in March, while 85,000 tons -in April.
“SOCAR may supply up to 1 million tons of oil to Belarus in 2020,” Belneftekhim said.
Oil was supplied from Azerbaijan to Belarus via Odessa-Brody pipeline as early as in 2011. The contract envisaged the supplies in the volume of four million tons, but the actual volume of shipments reached about 900,000 tons.
Oil supplies to Belarus in the southern direction, through Ukraine, were resumed due to a lack of import from big Russian companies caused by disagreements over the price.
Following the lack of oil supply from Russia, Belarus launched its alternative import - through the port of Klaipeda via railway to the Naftan refinery and through the port of Odessa to the Mozyr refinery through the Odessa-Brody and Brody-Mozyr oil pipelines.
Alternative oil supplies were also launched from Norway and Azerbaijan. In May, Belneftekhim began to import oil from Saudi Arabia and the US.
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