Azerbaijan, Baku, April 21 /Trend, E.Ismayilov, A.Maratov/
Oil terminal in the Georgian Port of Batumi, owned by the Kazakh KazMunaiGas, began transshipment of condensate from Shah Deniz field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, Abay Turikpenbaev, chairman of Batumi Industrial Holdings, which owns the terminal, told Trend on Thursday.
He said since last month, the terminal has begun transshipment of gas condensate from Shah Deniz, which is accounted for the Iranian NICO. Since the Iranian side is not a shareholder to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, it does not transport the condensate from the Shah Deniz field through this pipeline.
Under the agreement, the condensate will be shipped through the Batumi oil terminal by the end of the year in volume of an average of 20,000 tons per month, said Turikpenbaev.
The exact volumes of transshipment, which is provided for this year, have not been agreed, said Turikpenbaeva.
The contract to develop the offshore Shah Deniz field was signed June 4, 1996. Participants to the agreement are: BP (operator) - 25.5 percent, Statoil Hydro - 25.5 percent, NICO - 10 percent, Total - 10 percent, LukAgip - 10 percent, TPAO - 9 percent, SOCAR-10 percent.
The Shah Deniz field's gas reserves are estimated at 1.2 billion cubic meters, while condensate - 240 million tons.
At present, gas is transported to Georgia and Turkey via the South Caucasus gas pipeline.
Peak production is forecasted at over 8.6-9 billion cubic meters. It is planned that in the second stage of field development, gas production can be brought up to 25 billion cubic meters a year.
In February 2008, KazTransOil - a subsidiary of KMG, acquired a 100 percent share of Batumi Oil Terminal.