Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Kazakhstan's oil transportation company KazTransOil JSC is in talks with Azerbaijan and Georgia to reduce tariffs for the transit of oil by rail.

KazTransOil general director Kairgeldy Kabyldin stated that the sides also revise the issue of increasing Kazakhstan's supplies from three million tons in 2012 to five million tons in 2013.

"We are currently considering increasing volumes of transported oil in the Baku-Black Sea direction to five million tons in the current year," Kabyldin said.

He recalled that according to the results of 2012, Kazakhstan transported nearly three million tons of oil further from the Tengiz field through the Caspian Sea to Baku via the Baku-Black Sea route.

"Azerbaijan and Georgia, through whose territories the railway crosses to the Batumi sea port, have raised the tariff on oil transit and now we are negotiating with them to reach commercial agreements concerning the amount of the tariff, as this direction is competitive compared to other routes of our oil supplies to world markets," he said.

According to him, if the parties fail to agree, the company expects to at least maintain the current level of Tengiz oil transportation at no less than three million tons per year via the Caucasian corridor.

Kabyldin also mentioned that Kazakhstan does not exclude the possibility of transporting its oil through the new Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway to the Persian Gulf.

"This route by rail may be organized and most likely will become a reality," he said. However, as it is known, there are some sanctions imposed by the EU and the U.S. against Iran over its nuclear program and Kazakhstan will consider these risks as well, Kabyldin added.

Iranian Ambassador to Kazakhstan Gorban Seifi said in his recent interview that trade between the two countries will reach up to $5 billion in the next few years.

He said that it will become possible after commissioning the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway.

KazTransOil JSC is KazMunaiGas national company's subsidiary. It has a diversified network of oil and water pipelines running to a total length of about 8,000 km. The company transports about 59 percent of the total volume of oil extracted in the country for export and the domestic market.