ASTANA, Kazakhstan, August 6. Kazakhstan has increased the volume of oil transportation by sea thanks to exports through Azerbaijan, Trend reports, citing the report of KazMunayGas (a national oil and gas company) for the first half of 2024.
Thus, in the reporting period, the volume of oil transportation by sea increased by 26.4 percent and reached 6.618 million tons from January through June.
"The growth is due to an increase in oil transportation through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, shipping oil in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as an increase in volumes along the Aktau-Makhachkala and Aktau-Baku routes in the Caspian Sea," the report says.
At the same time, it is noted that there is a decrease in transportation volumes in the Black Sea, which is explained by repairs at the Petromidia plant and NATO military exercises.
To note, 3.376 million tons of oil were loaded into tankers at the port of Aktau utilizing KazTransOil facilities by the end of 2023. Of this total, 1.057 million tons were bound for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan route.
Meanwhile, in 2022, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev issued an order to enhance the amount of oil transported through the Trans-Caspian corridor. The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and KazMunayGas, the country's oil and gas company, signed an agreement allowing for the transportation of up to 1.5 million tons of oil annually from the Tengiz field in the direction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline in compliance with this directive.
Furthermore, while President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev paid a visit to Azerbaijan on March 11–12, KazMunayGas and SOCAR sealed the deal to ramp up the oil flow through the BTC to a whopping 2.2 million tons annually.
