The Kazakh authorities are negotiating to resume oil transportation via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, Kazakhstan's Energy Minister Erlan Akkenzhenov told journalists, APA-Economics reports, citing TASS.
According to him, the oil and gas company KazMunayGaz is negotiating to resume supplies via this route as soon as possible.
The minister noted that this pipeline has a large throughput capacity, so there is an opportunity to increase supplies if shippers have economic interest.
Earlier, the Vedomosti newspaper reported that Kazakhstan had temporarily redirected oil supplies from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan route to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline.
Recall that in July of this year, BTC Co. received information about potential quality issues related to organic chlorides in some shipments of crude oil transported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. BTC Co. immediately carried out a comprehensive assessment of the quality of crude oil at all facilities located along the pipeline.
The results of these assessments showed that the quality of crude oil at all facilities located along the pipeline up to the Ceyhan terminal complies with the accepted specification. In addition, work was carried out to assess the quality of crude oil inside the tanks at the Ceyhan terminal. As a result, the presence of organic chlorides in the crude oil in some tanks was determined. Appropriate measures were immediately taken and these tanks were isolated.
Currently, the BTC pipeline mainly carries oil produced in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block from Azerbaijan and Shah Deniz condensate. In addition, other regional volumes of crude oil and condensate from the Caspian (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, other volumes of SOCAR produced in Azerbaijan) are also transported via BTC.
BTC Co.'s shareholders are: bp (30.1%), SOCAR (32.97%), MOL (8.90%), TPAO (6.53%), Eni (5%), TotalEnergies (5%), ITOCHU (3.4%), ONGC Videsh (3.1%), ExxonMobil (2.5%) and INPEX (2.5%).
