Oil transportation via Baku-Supsa temporarily resumed

For the first time in 10 months after the Russian-Ukrainian war the transportation of oil from the block of fields Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli in the Caspian Sea through the Baku-Supsa pipeline on the Georgian Black Sea coast has been resumed for a short time.

As Report informs via Eurasianet, BP, which operates both the ACG field and the Baku-Supsa pipeline, confirmed that the flow has been resumed, with one tanker picking up its cargo the previous weekend and a second tanker due to pick up its cargo this weekend.

Flow through the pipeline was halted last year, first temporarily in March and then permanently in May, due to concerns about the safety of navigation in the Black Sea after reports of free-floating mines. All the oil that used to go through the Baku-Supsa pipeline is redirected through Türkiye via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. And this is about 3 million barrels of oil a month.

BP said the flow to Supsa was resumed only as a result of a six-day closure of the export terminal of the BTC pipeline in Ceyhan on the Mediterranean coast of Türkiye because of the earthquakes that occurred nearby on February 6.

Before the war, Azerbaijani oil was exported to international markets through three separate pipelines: the Baku-Supsa, BTC and Baku-Novorossiysk pipelines. The flow through this third pipeline was also stopped last year for the same reasons, when the oil was again rerouted through BTC.

It should be noted that today the main export pipeline can pump 1.2 million barrels of oil per day. As BP's Caspian Vice President Bakhtiyar Aslanbeyli stated earlier, the throughput capacity of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline can be expanded from 1.6 to 2.2 mln bpd.

As it was before the earthquake in Türkiye, BP resumed crude shipments to the world markets from the Ceyhan terminal, which had been previously stopped due to minor damage at the oil loading berth. After the massive earthquake on February 6, BP began inspecting all infrastructure in Türkiye, including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the Ceyhan oil terminal. The inspections showed no major damage.