Azernews.Az

By Leman Mammadova

Azerbaijan will resume the supply of its oil abroad via the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline starting from this summer, when the maintenance work in the Azerbaijani section of the pipeline finishes.

SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) will restart oil exports via Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline starting from July 2019, SOCAR Vice President Elshad Nasirov told journalists.

However, he did not specify the volume of oil that the company plans to export.

It is noteworthy that along with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Azerbaijani oil is also exported via Baku-Novorossiysk.

On February 18, 1996, an agreement was signed on transporting Azerbaijani oil to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk through the territory of the Russian Federation. Azerbaijan has been transporting its oil to the world markets through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline since 1997.

The total length of the oil pipeline is 1,330 km, 231 kilometers in its Azerbaijani section, and 916 kilometers in the Russian section. The maximum transmission capacity of the pipeline is 105,000 barrels per day.

In March 2019, Azerbaijan stopped pumping oil through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in connection with maintenance work in the Azerbaijani section of the pipeline. During the maintenance work, the volumes of oil that were provided for transportation in this direction are pumped through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

Azerbaijan exported 249.54 tons of oil via Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in January-February 2019.

The Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline transports oil extracted by SOCAR independently, as well as from onshore fields developed within joint ventures. SOCAR has been the operator of the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline since 2008.

SOCAR exported 1.2 million tons of oil through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in 2018 and it plans to export 1.5 million tons via the pipeline in 2019.

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Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888

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