Transit of Azerbaijani oil via BTC exceeds 120 million barrels
By Leman Mammadova
Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC) has announced the volume of Azerbaijani oil transit through the Georgian territory for the first half of 2019.
Total oil transit through pipelines on the territory of Georgia amounted to 133.9 million barrels in January-June 2019, which is 4.7 percent less than the figure for the same period in 2018.
In the second quarter, oil transit decreased by 6.8 percent compared with the previous quarter, and compared with the second quarter of 2018 - by 8.5 percent, to 64.6 million barrels.
In the first half of this year, 120.5 million barrels of Azerbaijani oil was transported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) main export pipeline, which is 3.1 percent less than compared to the same period last year.
The oil transportation via the Baku-Supsa Western Route Export Pipeline (WREP) to the terminal on the Black Sea coast of Georgia decreased by 17.3 percent and amounted to 13.4 million barrels.
Since the beginning of the year, the largest volume of oil transportation through both pipelines was recorded in May - 23.6 million barrels, of which 22.1 million barrels accounted for BTC, 1.5 million barrels – for WREP.
Last year, the transit of oil through the territory of Georgia increased by 0.5 percent compared with 2017, reaching 283 million barrels. The oil transportation via BTC increased by 0.9 percent to 255.3 million barrels, while through WREP decreased by 3.1 percent amounting to 27.7 million barrels.
Azerbaijani oil produced from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field is exported to the world markets through the Sangachal Terminal, mainly through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil export pipeline and the WREP.
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, which is considered to be the main artery of energy export in the region, has played an important role in the extraction of the Caspian Sea's rich energy resources and bringing them to the world markets.
At present, the BTC pipeline mainly transports the ACG oil and Shah Deniz condensate from Azerbaijan. In addition, other crude oil and condensate volumes, including Turkmen, Russian and Kazakh oil are transported via the pipeline.
The length of the pipeline is 1,768 km, 443 km runs through Azerbaijan, 249 km - through Georgia and 1,076 km - through Turkey. Daily transport capacity of the pipeline is 1.2 million barrels.
The crude oil delivery to the first tanker at the Ceyhan terminal took place in the summer of 2006. From that time until the end of 2018, BTC transported more than 417 million tons (about 3.12 billion barrels) of crude oil and was loaded into the world market by loading 4,085 tankers at the port of Ceyhan.
In 2018, approximately 34 million tons (255 million barrels) of crude oil was exported through BTC.
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Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888
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