MINSK, 12 March (BelTA) – The first tanker carrying Azerbaijani oil intended for Mozyr Oil Refinery has reached the Odessa port, BelTA learned from Aleksandr Tishchenko, Press Secretary of the Belarusian state petrochemical concern Belneftekhim.
The official said: “A tanker with 90,000 tonnes of Azeri Light oil has arrived in the port of Odessa. The ship is being moved to the unloading berth. Oil drainage and routing to the pipeline will begin today.”
Mozyr Oil Refinery will get this oil next week.
Earlier today BelTA quoted the Belneftekhim representative as saying that the oil pipelines Odessa-Brody and Brody-Mozyr are ready for pumping Azerbaijani oil from Ukraine to Mozyr Oil Refinery. It was noted that oil transportation by pipeline to Mozyr Oil Refinery does not affect oil transit.
BelTA reported earlier that the Azerbaijani company SOCAR will ship about 250,000 tonnes of oil to Belarus in March. The first tanker with oil for Mozyr Oil Refinery left the Turkish port of Ceyhan on 6 March. Two more tankers with oil for Belarus are supposed to arrive in Odessa from Novorossiysk and Supsa. Up to 1 million tonnes of oil may be shipped to Belarus in 2020.
Major Russian oil companies stopped shipping oil to Belarus on 1 January due to the absence of an agreement on prices. First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Dmitry Krutoi was quoted as saying that Belarus believes it is economically inadvisable and pointless to pay the same amounts of premiums to Russian companies. On 11 March Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Rumas said that Belarus had presented new oil acquisition proposals to Russia.
