SOCAR TO SELL AZERI LIGHT VIA BATUMI PORT

The State oil company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) announces a tender on the sale of 80,000 tons of Azeri Light crude oil, to be shipped off the port of Batumi, Georgia, on FOB delivery terms.

The consignment вЂ" part of SOCAR’s profit oil from the Azeri вЂ" Chirag вЂ" (deepwater) Gunashli (ACG) oil fields вЂ" will be loaded on to a tanker July 21 through 25. The fields are operated by the Azerbaijan International Operating Company.

A SOCAR spokesman told Trend that results of the tender would be available on June 28. “We likely will announce monthly tenders on sale of oil [in the above amount] off [the port of] Batumi,” he said.

The Batumi oil terminal is capable of handling up to 15 million tons per year of crude oil. The port has four mooring facilities, including a buoy for Aframax vessels, to serve tankers each of 30,000 to 90,000 tons displacement. The terminal operates an oil storage facility with the capacity of about 530,000 tons, and is currently used to ship part of ACG oil.

Since January through May, the port has handled 3.39 million tons of oil and petroleum products, up 0.512 million tons from the year-ago figure.

AIOC on June 1 began the filling in a 12-km joint pipeline running from a terminal [operated by local private company Azpetrol] at the Sangacahal settlement, 42 km southwest of Baku, to the railway overpass, with ACG crude [Azeri Light]. Azpetrol has been commissioned with supplying up to 40,000 barrels per day of Azeri Light to the port of Batumi via railway. AIOC will benefit the route until the commissioning of the Baku-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.

With the commissioning of a new oil supplies route, the AIOC has managed to reduce its dependence on the Baku-Novorossiysk northern route export pipeline. The released capacity will be filled in by SOCAR вЂ" the state oil company plans to supply 85,000 tons of crude oil via the northern route.

As to Azpetrol, the company вЂ" according to industry sources вЂ" will supply by railway 40,000 barrels per day of crude oil in July in August. The figure is expected to halve in September.