BAKU.16.04.2004.MEDIA-PRESS: The declaration of the President of the Company BP-Azerbaijan Mr. David Woodward that after putting into operation of the oil pipeline Baku - Tbilisi - Ceyhan the Azerbaijan Operating Company AIOC intends to use the pipeline Baku - Novorossiisk "only as reserve", has not become unexpectedness for the Russian side.
As the Vice-President of "Transneft" Mr. Sergey Grigoriev has said, his company has not been distressed by the decision of the AIOC. "Our company has warned long time ago that after completion of the construction of the pipeline BTC Azerbaijan will leave from the direction Baku - Novorossiisk, though the officials of the AIOC have declared by some incomprehensible reasons that this route will be interesting for then as before, - Mr. S. Grigoriev has said. The past year "Transneft" has pumped 415 MM tons of oil by it so a loss of 2.5 MM tons is not so significant. Especially as we can replace these volumes by the Kazakhstan oil without any difficulties: it is delivered from Makhachkala and we know that the Kazakhs are interested in increasing of this volume in spite of existence of the Caspian pipeline system".
If to be true, we shall not that the declaration of Mr. D. Woodward changes almost nothing in the present situation. But it is well known that long time ago oil being produced by the Azerbaijan International Oil Company has not been pumped. It is delivered to the pipeline Baku - Supsa. And those 2.5 MM tons of oil, which are annually transported from Baku to Novorossiisk, are provided by the SOCAR. This its own oil, but not of the AIOC.
And there is else one important detail. In spite of optimistic declaration of the Vice-President of "Transneft" it should be mentioned that very recently the Russian side offered again to Azerbaijan revising an issue of increase of pumping of the Azerbaijan oil to Novorossiisk up to 5 MM tons per annum. In Baku this offer has been offered as purposeless for lack of crude. Moreover, already during the visit to Moscow Mr Ilham Aliyev has offered to reverse the pipe and transport the Russian oil from Novorossisk to Baku. By the words of Mr. Ilham Aliyev, this will allow load the Baku OPP, where crude is insufficient. Mr. I. Aliev has reminded that the oil pipeline Baku-Novorossiisk has been built just for these purposes.
As the newspaper "Vremya Novostey" writes, there is else one reason, which makes the AIOC to refuse of using the northern route. The question is about that the consortium should take into account possible losses from stopping idle of tankers delivering oil from Novorossisk in the Turkish Black Sea straits the Bosporus and Dardanelles. One day of stopping idle of tanker costs 30 - 40 thou dollars in average. In the last months such delays became usual matter both for a reason of bad weather and in result of limitations of capacity of the straits, introduced by the Turkish authorities. And these limitations will grow correspondingly with a growth of oil transportations through the straits.
Moreover, Moscow thinks that warnings of Ankara on overloading of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles and a danger of ecological emergency here - this only is an effort of redirect potential flows of the Caspian oil to the pipeline Baku - Ceyhan roundabout Novorossisk. So the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Mr. Victor Kalyuzni suggested on the international conference in Istanbul on February to start the multisided consultations for considering problem of the Black Sea in complex. By his opinion, it is necessary to conduct the model monitoring of passing of tankers through Bosporus for determination of real threats to ecological conditions of the Turkish straits. However, since this time no response has been received including the Russian institutions.

BTC CO. HAS RECEIVED THE FIRST TRANCHE BY $1.6 BN OF CREDIT FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE MEP BAKU - TBILISI - CEYHAN