Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 27 / Trend E. Ismailov /
The transportation of Azerbaijani oil supplies to Belarus will start in January 2011, Rovnag Abdullayev, head of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, said today.
With oil supplies to Belarus stakeholders envisage the delivery of raw materials to the Black Sea coast, and thereby replacing these volumes by Venezuelan light oil. The Belarusian-Venezuelan joint venture, Petrolero BeloVenezolana produces the latter.
Abdullayev outlined two major advantages of the project. The first is overcoming a logistical issue, which will do away with the need to transport oil over long distances. Secondly, SOCAR sales will go hand in hand with those of the Azerbaijani Azeri Light oil and the Venezuelan oil, which the company intends to sell mostly in the U.S. market.
Abdullaev stressed that through this agreement oil supplies should reach roughly five million tons of a year.
Earlier, the Belarusian Oil Company (BOC) and Socar Trading signed a contract for the supply of Azerbaijani oil to Belarus in exchange for Venezuelan oil.
