Georgia urges to resume oil pumping via Baku-Supsa route

Georgian Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Levan Davitashvili has said that Georgia expects to resume oil transhipment along the Baku-Supsa route in 2024, Report informs.

Regular fuel supplies through this pipeline were suspended in 2022.

According to the minister, Georgia expects to reach a transit volume of 1 million tonnes per year.

"The position of the Azerbaijani side is very important on the use of the oil pipeline, and here we have an intensive dialogue, as this pipeline has been working for Azerbaijan's oil since the spring of 1999. Now we are discussing the transit of Kazakhstan's oil through it, and this oil is of a different type. I think we will have certainty in the main issues and we hope that this year we will start pumping this (Kazakhstan) oil. In the future, we think we will be able to handle more than one million tonnes of oil per year. I hope that oil transportation will begin this year," said Davitashvili.

The Azerbaijani Energy Ministry also confirmed that the resumption of oil pumping along the Baku-Supsa route may start this year.

This oil pipeline can transit fuel up to 5 million tonnes per year.

Since 1999, Azerbaijan has used the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline to transship fuel from the Chirag field. In spring 2022, it was decided to suspend fuel supplies via this route due to transport problems. All Azerbaijani oil is now exported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.

Last year Azerbaijan offered Kazakhstan to transport 5 million tonnes of Kazakh oil a year through the Baku-Supsa pipeline. If an agreement was reached, it was expected that this would be oil from the Kashagan field. In 2023, deliveries of Kazakh oil via the BTC route increased 5.5 times to 1 million 392,000 tonnes.

Baku-Supsa is a pipeline to transport Caspian oil from the Sangachal terminal near Baku on the Caspian Sea to the Georgian port of Supsa, located on the Black Sea coast.