SOCAR resumes talks with Transneft on Baku-Novorossiysk oil shipments
MOSCOW. Feb 13 (Interfax) - The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) has resumed talks with Russian oil pipeline operator Transneft regarding oil shipments along the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, Transneft spokesman Igor Dyomin told Interfax.
"Unexpectedly, when we were preparing to mothball the Shirvanovka-Makhachkala pipeline, the Azerbaijani company took the initiative and opted to hold talks on the signing of a commercial agreement to pump volumes of oil from Baku to Novorossiysk," Dyomin said.
Dyomin did not say what sort of volumes would be pumped or what the tariff for doing so would be. "This is the subject of negotiations, which have not yet finished. Volumes, tariff and quality are the subject of negotiations. We made proposals to Azerbaijan regarding all these points a few months ago but they remained unanswered," he said.
Dyomin also said the last consignment of Azerbaijani oil under the previous inter-governmental agreement would be pumped on February 14. Transneft has carried 173,000 tonnes of Azerbaijani oil along the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline since the beginning of this year.
Transneft has halted efforts to mothball the Shirvanovka-Makhachkala pipeline while the talks are in progress, and they have already been under way for a w1eek, Dyomin said. "If the talks come to nothing we'll continue the mothballing," he said.
