The owners of the Batumi Oil Terminal are forming a strategic union with the Kazakhstan National Oil Company (KNOC), Uzakbay Karabalin, Chairman of KazMunayGas JSC and Jan Bonde Nielsen, Chairman of the Batumi Oil Terminal stated during a joint press conference, Trend Special Correspondent reports.
According to Mr. Karabalin, an proposal on the establishment of Batumi Terminal Company has been agreed with Georgia`s Prime-Minister Zurab Nogaideli. The parties to the new establishment will be KazMunayGas JSC, KazTransOil and the Batumi Oil Terminal.
Mr. Karabalin said that the oil shipping will reach a record of 12 mln. tons of oil this year. Since 1999, the work of the Georgian transit corridor has been quite successful. The volume of oil and oil products exported from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan has significantly increased. However, that now requires new ideas, he told.
As a result of the new agreement on the partnership and co-operation implemented through the establishment of the new company, over 20,000 people will be employed in Georgia, and the Batumi Oil Terminal will give more than 60% of the whole revenue of the Georgian Railways.
That partnership is very important to our new partners from KazTransOil JSC too, since it will give Kazakhstan the possibility of share-holding in the transport solutions providing a direct entrance of its oil-producing companies to the Black Sea, as well as Georgia, and will receive strong support from Kazakhstan as one of the rapid developing countries in the World, pointed out Mr. Karabalin.
In his turn, Mr. Nielsen said the new agreement and the establishment of the new project will allow the terminal to fill those volumes of oil which were new to the BTC pipeline and significantly increase the existing volumes of the oil export.