Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend , corr. I. Khalilova/ Preparatory works for an agreement of the receiving party on the project of carrying oil produced from Kazakhstan via the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) Pipeline has been launched.
Trend has been told by SOCAR (State Oil Company), this package of documents will determine the volume of oil to be carried via BTC, as well as crude volumes to be carried by railway to Georgian Black Sea ports.
Notably, SOCAR has a large modern oil terminal in Kulevi on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia. The Kazakhstan party has a share holding in the Batumi oil terminal. The parties will solve the issue jointly of transporting the Kazakhstan oil.
"Expenditure on the construction of the oil terminal in Kulevi exceeds the preliminary appraisal of works carried out by 30-40 %," the source in SOCAR said.
The launch of the mentioned terminal is expected to be in June 2007, and the construction of approach lines to the terminal is near completion. The capacity of the new terminal will reach 10 mln. tons in the initial stage.
The oil produced from the Kazakhstan Oil Deposit of Tengiz is expected to be carried by railway to the Georgian ports as early as 2008. The fact that the expansion of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CTC) has been delayed, however, oil volumes from Tengiz to be carried by railway will only increase.