Volume of oil pumping via Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline revealed

By Azernews

By Leman Mammadova

State oil company SOCAR resumed exports via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline from July 3 after the shutdown in March 2019 due to the scheduled maintenance work on the pipeline.

SOCAR exported 409,400 tons of oil via the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline In January-August 2019, reads the report of Russia’s Federal State Budgetary Institution Central Dispatching Office of the Fuel and Energy Complex.

In August alone, SOCAR’s oil pumping along this route amounted to 79,980 tons.

Earlier, Sergey Andronov, Vice President of Transneft, which is the operator of the pipeline’s Russian section, said that SOCAR requested for 320,000 tons for transportation in the third quarter of 2019. The annual volume at 1.3 million tons, previously announced by the company, remained unchanged.

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 Russia. 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 km account for its Azerbaijani section. The maximum transmission capacity of the pipeline is 105,000 barrels per day.

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.

As Azerbaijan has no direct access to the open seas, it is in need of more pipelines. So, maintaining oil transportation via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline meets Baku's interests in terms of diversification of routes.