Azernews.Az

BAKU – An increase in the volume of oil transit through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline up to 5 million tons a year is currently on the agenda of the Russian-Azerbaijani energy cooperation, said participants of a session of the intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation recently held in Moscow.

During the meeting, chaired by the vice-premiers of Azerbaijan and Russia Yagub Eyyubov and Alexander Khloponin, the parties discussed amendments to the 1996 contract between Azerbaijan and Russia on the transit of Azerbaijani oil through Russia’s territory with a view of its adaptation to modern conditions, SOCAR’s vice-president Elshad Nasirov said.

He said that the contract does not provide transit of oil of the third parties – Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

"We want to increase the transit volume, to meet the Russian side’s requirement about an increase in transit of oil up to 5 million tons a year, taking into account the difference of the quality of oil which we deliver. We aren’t interested in increasing the transit of our oil, we could there pump oil of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan which we get and transport by rail and to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline," the SOCAR vice-president said.

Nasirov also said that agreement was reached with Russia that in the first half of 2011, SOCAR and Transneft will discuss the text of amendments which will allow to fill the pipeline completely and to increase goods turnover between the two countries.

"It will be not a new agreement, but it is a supplement to the contract signed in 1996", he stressed.

For 2010 the volume of transit of Azerbaijani oil through the Russian territory via the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline made up 2.3 million tons.