BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept.3
By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:
Ukraine is interested in organizing the transportation of Azerbaijani light oil via the southern part of the Druzhba pipeline to Central and East European countries, Ukrainian Energy Ministry told Trend.
“Currently, the major target European consumers are taking decisive steps towards diversification of oil supplies to their enterprises, thereby significantly increasing competition in the oil transportation services’ market. Taking into account the market conditions, Ukrtransnafta continues negotiations with all potential participants of the project for organizing the transportation of light oil from the Caspian Sea region to EU via Odessa-Brody and Druzhba. Ukrainian oil transportation system has enough technical capabilities to ensure transportation of up to 3 million tons of light oil per year via the Druzhba pipeline. The allocation of one of the two sections of the Ukrainian part of the Druzhba pipeline for transportation of light oil allows to supply 5 million tons of light oil per year through this route,” said the ministry.
The Ukrainian ministry said that a number of meetings have been held with the companies interested in the implementation of this project and protocols of intention with Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, a potential oil supplier under this project, as well as with Czech MERO ČR and Unipetrol.
“Ukraine and Azerbaijan have repeatedly reiterated interest in the implementation of this project. The key difference of the project is that there is no need for new oil pipelines. It can be implemented by using the existing oil transportation infrastructure and spare oil transit capacities along this route,” the ministry said.
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