Russia's oil-delivering company Transneft is going to cancel deliveries via the Baku-Novorossisk oil pipeline in two and a half weeks. This means that oil deliveries from Azerbaijan to Russia will stop. The reason is that the pipeline is unprofitable.Azerbaijan's SOCAR says that the tariffs are too high and Transneft believes that the amount of transported oil isn't enough.
Vestnik Kavkaza discussed the matter with Rosneft's Vice President Mikhail Leontyev and Azerbaijani expert Ilham Shaban.
According to Rosneft's representative, the company is not considering reverse deliveries via the pipeline right now, however it is open to any project if it is profitable.
The Azerbaijani expert says that there is nothing threatening in the decision to suspend deliveries. He also stresses that reverse deliveries of Urals oil would be mutually beneficial. SOCAR and Rosneft were negotiating such deliveries last summer.
