Azernews.Az

The supplies of Azerbaijani oil to Ukraine’s Ukrtatnafta may rise to 700,000 tons from the current 240,000 tons, says the closed joint-stock company’s president, Pavel Ovcharenko.
"Azerbaijani partners are saying they are ready to supply Ukrtatnafta with
600,000 to 700,000 tons a month," Ovcharenko told a meeting on industry issues held Thursday by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in Kremenchuk, a key industrial city in the Poltava province of central Ukraine.
Ovcharenko reminded that Ukrtatnafta has concluded a three-year contract on purchasing oil with Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, with the minimum monthly bulk of deliveries set at 240,000 tons.
The South Caucasus republic’s crude is being transported to the Ukraine town of Odessa at the Black Sea, and, further, to the company’s facilities through Ukrtatnafta’s pipelines.
Ovcharenko said Azerbaijani suppliers’ interest in Ukrtatnafta’s refinery in Kremenchuk is due to what he called their displacement from the European market by Russian rivals, as well as Ukrtatnafta’s reliability as a partner.
Supplies of Azerbaijani crude to the refinery began in early October. Then, Ovcharenko said Ukrtatnafta was seeking to increase its purchases from 240,000 tons to 400,000 tons.
Azerbaijan produces most of its oil from the major Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli fields in the Caspian Sea.*