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Tankers will take Azeri Light oil loading at Supsa in a few days

06 November 2008 14:26 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Nijat Mustafayev â€“ APA-Economics. Baku-Supsa Pipeline that delivers crude oil from Azerbaijanâ€™s capital, Baku, to the Black Sea port of Supsa in Georgia has resumed operation, said Tamam Bayatly, spokesman for pipeline operator BP-Azerbaijan.
â€œAs a precautionary measure the pipeline was shut in August when Russia-Georgia war sparkled, about a week after it returned to service following a closure since November, 2006 for maintenance,â€ she added.
She noted that tankers will take the loading at Supsa in 4-5 days.
The capacity of the pipeline is about 7.5 million tons per annum.
Since its inception in 1999, Baku-Supsa Pipeline also known as the Western Route Export Pipeline transported 50 million tons of oil until the end of 2005 and 5.6 million tons was pumped in ten months of 2006. The pipeline has been shut down since then and 100 000 tons of oil was pumped into the pipeline in August this year.
It is an 837 kilometers (530mm pipe) long oil pipeline, which runs from the Sangachal Terminal near Baku to the Supsa terminal in Georgia.
Essentially, the Baku-Supsa pipeline is a refurbished Soviet era pipeline with several newly built sections. It has six pumping stations and two pressure reduction stations in western Georgia. The four storage tanks at the Supsa terminal have a total capacity of 160,000 cubic meters. The capacity of the pipeline is 145,000 barrel per day (bbl/d) with proposed upgrades to between 300,000 bbl/d to 600,000 bbl/d.