The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan SOCAR and the Swiss-Dutch company Vitol Group have agreed to transport about 1 million tons of Turkmen oil per year, “Turkmenistan: Golden Age” reports.

According to the information, the companies have signed a corresponding agreement, the implementation of which will begin in early October 2021.

The oil is planned to be exported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil trunk pipeline (abbreviated as BTC). SOCAR transports Turkmen oil across the Caspian Sea by tankers.

The oil purchased from Turkmenistan was previously transported by tankers through the river and seaports of Russia to Novorossiysk, and then by oil pipeline. Now the volume of transportation of Turkmen oil by Vitol along this route can be halved, amounting to 80 tons per month. Currently, the transit of oil from Turkmenistan through Russia is about 160 thousand tons per month.

When buying and selling, trading oil companies take into account the quality of the purchased raw materials and economical transportation routes. Turkmen oil has always been a high-margin product on the market.

The length of the BTC pipeline is 1,768 kilometers. The oil pipeline passes through the territory of three countries - Azerbaijan (443 km), Georgia (249 km) and Turkey (1076 km). The throughput capacity is 1.2 million barrels of oil per day. In January-August 2021, more than 132 thousand barrels of oil were transported via the BTC pipeline through Turkey.