Kazakhstan in talks with Azerbaijan over oil transportation via Baku-Supsa

Kazakhstan is negotiating with Azerbaijan regarding the transportation of up to 3 million tons of its oil per year via the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline, according to the Kazakh Ministry of Energy, Report informs referring to Interfax Kazakhstan.

“The issue is being discussed with the Azerbaijani side to consider the possibility of transporting Kazakh oil via the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline in a volume of up to 3 million tons per year,” the Ministry of Energy said in its response.

Last year Azerbaijan offered Kazakhstan to transport 5 million tons of Kazakh oil via the Baku-Supsa pipeline. If an agreement was reached, it was expected that it would be oil from the Kashagan field. Also, Azerbaijan, according to sources, offered to transport oil through the Black Sea ports in Georgia.

According to the North Caspian Operating Company, Kashagan’s recoverable reserves amount to approximately 9-13 billion barrels (1-2 billion tons) of oil.

Baku-Supsa is a pipeline for transporting Caspian oil from the Sangachal terminal near Baku on the Caspian Sea to the Georgian port of Supsa, located on the Black Sea.

Oil pumping through Baku-Supsa was stopped in the spring of 2022. All Azerbaijani oil is now exported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline. For Kazakhstan, the main export route is the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, ending at the Russian marine terminal near Novorossiysk.

BTC is a pipeline designed to transport Caspian oil to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, located on the Mediterranean coast. Kazakhstan is trying to increase oil exports bypassing Russia; this year it plans to export 1.5 million tons via the BTC.

As previously reported by the national operator of Kazakhstan on the main oil pipeline, Kaztransoil, in 2023, oil supplies along the BTC route increased 5.5 times, to 1.392 million tons.