Belarus expects Azerbaijani oil in March 2011

Belarus plans to start receiving Azerbaijani oil in March 2011, BELTA
cites the head of the Belneftehim concern, Bronislav Siviy.
Siviy told a session of the joint commission of the Chamber of
Representatives and the Council of Belarus that Belarus will use swap
operations in March 2011.

Belarus, Venezuela and Azerbaijan have agreements on swap shipments of
oil. SOCAR (the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic) is
interested in Santa Barbara oil from Venezuela, which will be realized
on the US market. SOCAR will transport oil to Belarus and take the
same amount of oil from Venezuela. This amounts to approximately 5
million tons of oil annually.

Siviy noted that this version is beneficial for Belarus.

A high-ranking SOCAR official had said earlier that realization of the
project involves transportation of Azerbaijani oil to Ukrainian ports
using the CIF conditions.

Belarus and Ukraine have an inter-governmental agreement on oil
supplies to Belarusian oil refineries. Further transport of oil will
be determined by the two countries.


One of the main variants is transporting oil from Ukraine to Belarus
using the Odessa-Brody pipeline. This pipeline was planned in order to
diversify oil supplies to Ukrainian oil refineries and develop its
transport cabilities. The Odessa-Brody pipeline was completed in May
2002. It is 674 kilometers long with a diameter of 1020mm. The first
stage of the oil pipeline has an annual capacity of 9-14 million tons.

For two years Ukraine was trying to conclude deals on the transport of
Caspian oil through the pipeline. In late June 2004 it allowed the
pipeline to be used for transport of Russian oil in the reverse
direction.