Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 16
By Fatih Karimov – Trend
Iran says that it can link its northern oil pipeline to the oil producing countries of the Caspian Sea, once the crude oil swap resumed with the countries.
Extension of the northern pipeline for transfer of oil from northern part of the country to the oil producing countries will be economically justified if swap gets activated, Abbassali Jaafarinasab, managing director of Iranian Oil Pipelines and Telecommunication Company (IOPTC), said, SHANA news agency reported Oct. 16.
He further said that in the long term, transfer of crude through pipeline will be cheaper and reliable than that through the sea.
Jaafarinasab added that the northern pipeline currently is capable of transferring 120,000 barrels per day oil from Neka to Sari and from Sari to Tehran to meet feedstock of refineries of Tehran and Tabriz.
He also said that if necessary, the feedstock for Arak refinery can be supplied by the pipeline with some changes.
The pipeline’s oil transfer capacity stands at over 370,000 barrels per day (bpd), he said, adding that the capacity can be increased to 500,000 bpd.
However, Jaafarinasab said that since the oil swap with Caspian littoral countries will be carried out from the sea and the oil tankers, frequenting in the Caspian Sea have the capacity to transfer 5,000 to 7,000 tons it seems that no more than 200,000 bpd of crude oil transfer will be possible in current conditions.
Jaafarinasab also noted that Iran has held talks with Russia and Kazakhstan to resume crude oil swap.
Earlier in August, delegations from Russia and Kazakhstan visited the facilities of Neka oil terminal in Iran’s northern Mazandaran province, to study resuming crude oil swap.
At that time Pirouz Mousavi, managing director of the Iranian Oil Terminals Company (IOTC), said that the crude oil swap with Caspian states will resume within one month.
At the first step, some 50-100,000 barrels of crude oil is planned to be swapped per day, Mousavi said, adding the volume will increase gradually to reach the determined level.
The Hague International Court of Justice fined NICO of Iran $5.5 million due to stopping the swap of oil with its international partners. Under oil swap agreements, which started in 1997 and were in place for over 12 years, Iran received crude oil of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in the Neka port and delivered an equal volume to the clients of the same countries in Persian Gulf.
The total income received by Iran from these swap transactions from 1997 to 2009 amounted to about $880 million.