Kazakhstan eyes shipping 1.5M tons of oil via BTC pipeline

Kazakhstan plans to start shipping 1.5 million tons of oil per year via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline next year, Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov told journalists on November 10, Report informs referring to TASS.

“In particular, we now have an agreement to ship 1.5 million tons of oil in this direction via Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan from January 1 next year, and its further increase to 6-6.5 million tons is being worked out,” he said.

He noted that a special roadmap has been developed as part of the diversification of oil exports in Kazakhstan.

“In particular, this is the direction through the Aktau port to the port of Baku and from there in the direction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Also [the pipeline] Baku-Supsa in Georgia and Baku-Batumi, where there is our terminal in the port. Besides, there is a direction along railway from Atyrau towards Batumi and Uzbekistan. There is also the direction towards China. In all these areas, work is now underway to expand and increase the potential for oil exports,” the head of government said.