Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan Plan New Pipeline

Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Natig Aliyev announced on October 7 that his government and their Kazakh counterparts are in the final stages of negotiations over the construction of a 739-kilometer oil pipeline that will extend under the Caspian Sea.

“The construction of this pipeline will enable Kazakhstan to export its oil to ports in both Georgia and Turkey. The new pipeline’s capacity will amount to 23-25 million tons per year, with the possibility of a future expansion to 56 million tons,” Aliyev said.

Kazakhstan has one of the world’s proven reserves of hydrocarbons, which accounts for 5.5 billion tons of oil and 3 trillion cubic meters of gas.

Kazakhstan is to produce 33.6 billion cubic meters of gas and 80 million tons of oil per year, but has no guaranteed reliable and secure export route except the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan.

Three other existing pipelines that pass through Russia and the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, that carries oil from Kazakhstan’s huge Tengiz oil field to Russia’s Black Sea port Novorossysk, are incapable of meeting the country’s growing export potential.

Aliyev said the new pipeline will be part of the Kazakhstan Caspian Transportation System (KCTS).

The KCTS consists of oil terminals on the Kazakh coast of the Caspian Sea, as well as tankers, vessels and oil terminals on the Azeri side of the Sea.

All of the facilities are connected to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline.

Nicholas Waller