Kazakhstan’s energy ministry has no plans to ink an agreement with Azerbaijan on oil transportation through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, said the country’s energy minister Bolat Akchulakov.
Reuters earlier reported citing its sources that Kazakhstan is expected to sell some of its crude oil through Azerbaijan's biggest oil pipeline from September.
A source with direct knowledge of the matter said Kazakhstan's state oil firm Kazmunaigaz (KMG) was in advanced discussions with the trading arm of Azerbaijan's state firm SOCAR to allow 1.5 million tonnes per year of Kazakh crude to be sold through the Azerbaijani pipeline that delivers oil to Türkiye’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
The final contract is due to be signed at the end of August with flows through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline starting up a month later, the source said. Another 3.5 million tonnes per year of Kazakh crude could start flowing in 2023 through another Azerbaijani pipeline to Georgia's Black Sea port of Supsa, two sources said.
“We, at the ministry, don’t have any plans to sign such an agreement at the moment. I don’t think that we’re going to ink any deal on oil pumping [via BTC]. Such issues are studied technically and are discussed at the level of national companies. But it is not about signing an agreement on oil transportation in September,” Interfax Kazakhstan quoted the minister as saying at a briefing.
Akchulakov pointed out that such talks can be held at the level of national companies, but this kind of deals are agreed with the energy ministry, AzerNews reports.
