KazMunayGas continues talks on transport of oil through BTC

Kazakhstan views the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline as a possible route
for oil supplies for the world market, the head of KazMunayGas,
Kaiyrgeldy Kabyldin, told a press-conference in Astana on Monday,
Trend reports.

He said that the oil pipeline transported 100,000 tons of Kazakh oil
daily in 2009, but the prices for pumping oil were raised by the
shareholders.

The Azerbaijani State Committee for Statistics said that BTC
transported 1.9 million tons of oils from the Tengiz field in 2009.
285,100 tons of Kazakh oil were transported in October-December 2008.
Kabyldin said that they are currently negotiating with the Kazakh-US
company Tengizchevroil, the developer of the Tengiz field.

A high-ranking official from SOCAR (State Oil Company of the
Azerbaijani Republic) had noted earlier that the prices proposed by
Tengizchevroil to BTC are 15-20% lower than the prices of other oil
extraction companies.

The price for pumping Tengiz oil through BTC was $4.05 last year.

Tengizchevroil started oil pumping from Tengiz via the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in 2008. But at the start of this year no
oil was transported, due to disagreements between the TCO and the
shareholders of BTC on prices.

Tengiz oil is only transported to Azerbaijan via railroad and is
transported to the Kulevskiy oil terminal of SOCAR and the port of
Batumi, belonging to KazMunayGas.

The shareholders of BTC Co. are BP (30.1%), AzBTC (25%), Chevron
(8.90%), Statoil (8.71%), TPAO (6.53%), Eni (5%), Total (5%), Itochu
(3.40%), Inpex (2.50%), ConocoPhillips (2.50%) and Hess (2.36%).