BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan.26. The Baku-Supsa oil pipeline is hot tapped and may resume transportation any time, bp Vice President for the Caspian region, Communications and External Affairs Bakhtiyar Aslanbeyli told reporters Jan.26, Trend reports.
“We’re not using the pipeline at the moment, and all the exports go through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan. Reopening of Baku-Supsa depends on nominations from shippers for a tanker load at Supsa. If we receive nominations, we can start transportation at that very moment, since Baku-Supsa is hot tapped. When pipelines are cold tapped, it takes 3 months or so to resume,” he added.
The oil transportation via this pipeline was suspended in March 2022 and was resumed after repair and adjustment works carried out from April 1 to April 17. Afterwards, the oil pumping via Baku-Supsa was halted again.
Due to the halt of Baku-Supsa, the whole volume of Azerbaijani oil is exported via Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan.
The volume of oil transportation via the Baku-Supsa pipeline stood 4.2 million tons as of 2021. The oil produced from Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of fields offshore Azerbaijan accounted for the whole volume of transportation.
Baku-Supsa, or Western Route Export Pipeline transports Caspian oil from Sagachal terminal near Baku to Georgian Supsa port in the Black Sea. The pipeline was put into operation on April 17, 1999.
Baku-Supsa’s length stands at 837 kilometers with transportation capacity exceeding 7 million tons per year or 145 million barrels per day. The bp operated pipeline’s final destination is the port of Supsa, wherefrom oil is transported to Europe via tankers.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn