ASTANA ( WNAM MONITORING): Kazakhstan shipped the first crude oil produced at the Kashagan field to Baku to deliver through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.
The first batch of Kashagan oil, in the volume of around 6,000 tons, was loaded on the Taraz oil tanker at the Aktau port on Jan. 25 and arrived at the Sangachal terminal in Baku on Jan. 27. From there, it will be transported by the BTC pipeline on to the Mediterranean Sea.
The operation was made possible by a Jan. 15 agreement between SOCAR Midstream Operations, a subsidiary of SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state oil company, and KMG Trading, a subsidiary of KMG, Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil and gas company. It allows for the transit of 240,000 tons of Kashagan oil annually.
In 2022, a general agreement on the transit of Kazakh oil was signed between KMG and SOCAR. Last year in March, KMG and SOCAR signed an agreement to gradually increase oil transit through Azerbaijan, which provides for volumes to reach up to 2.2 million tons per year.
The delivery is part of Kazakhstan’s strategy to develop alternative export routes for domestic oil and enhance the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR).
