Oil & Gas News

Agreement to  include Kazakhstan in BTC
At a two-day meeting in Almati about Kazakhstan joining the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline project, a number of legal documents were considered. SOCAR president Natiq Aliyev has said a treaty between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to be signed in six months will take into account all issues, including terms of oil transportation and environmental questions. According to him, in addition to this document, the Azerbaijani and Kazakh governments will sign agreements with oil companies as well. As a result, a new Aktau-Baku company will be established. This company will be in charge of Kazakh oil transportation through the BTC pipeline and commercial contracts will be approved between the Aktau-Baku and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan companies. Oil companies operating in Kazakhstan hold a 15-per-cent stake in the BTC project.

AIOC exports 945,000 tons of crude in two months
The AIOC consortium exported 945,000 tons of crude through the Baku-Supsa pipeline over January-February in 2003. The BP Azerbaijan press service has told AssA-Irada that 467,000 tons of this volume was transported in February.

Joint ventures increase oil output
Joint ventures active in the sphere of oil production in Azerbaijan have over-fulfilled the 2003 January-February output forecast. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) told AssA-Irada over the past two months Salyanoil had raised the planned daily oil production of 757 tons to 877 tons per day. The venture has handed over 51,736 tons of oil, exceeding the target by 15.9 per-cent. Meanwhile, Sirvanoil JV has raised the January-February oil output to 722 tons per day, which is over the plan by 10.6 per-cent.

Oil transport shortage expected
Transportation of Azerbaijani oil through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in March 2003 will amount to 232,000 tons instead of the planned 250,000 tons, a source in the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) has told AssA-Irada. The source went on to say that this was attributed to Russian Transneft's failure to accept the planned volume of oil due to inclement weather. The shortage in oil transportation through the northern route constituted 135,000 ton over January and February this year.

Next purchaser of excess oil found
SOCAR has informed AssA-Irada that the next purchaser of Azerbaijan's profit oil within the Contract of the Century was identified. The Netherlands-British alliance - RD/Shell purchases the 1-m-barrel second lot of the profit oil. This lot of crude was already shipped from Georgia's Supsa port on March 16.