LUKoil, Russia’s biggest oil producer, will re-direct part of oil extracted on the Russian shore of the Caspian Sea, from Transneft oil pipeline to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, LUKoil press office told Reuters.
Until recently all LUKoil’s offshore oil was delivered to the Makhachkala part by tankers for its transportation to the Russian Black Sea shore via the Makhachkala-Tikhorezk-Novorossiysk pipeline.
“We have loaded the first tanker from the Yurii Korchagin field. Oil will be pumped via BTC,” LUKoil’s representative told Reuters, but he did not mention the reason of change of the route.
Sources from the business circles said that LUKoil-Litasco trader has concluded a contract with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) to deliver 20,000 tons of oil a month from the Russian Yurii Korchagin field on the Caspian Sea shelf till the end of 2014.
“The first tanker was transported from Makhachkala to Baku on May 15, 2014 and now it is planned to sell SOCAR 20,000 tons a month. This is more efficient, than deliveries via Transneft’s pipeline,” a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.
SOCAR transports oil to Makhachkala for its registration on the customs and then it is delivered to the Sangachal terminal near Baku for further pumping to the BTC pipeline, the same source told Reuters.
* Oil of four Caspian basin states, including Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia, is transported via the BTC oil pipeline. At present the volume of pumping totals over 800,000 barrels a day. The BTC carrying capacity is 1.2 million barrels a day.
