Kazakhstan to boost its oil exports via Azerbaijan by 150%

Kazakhstan has also proposed Azerbaijan to cooperate in the field of geological exploration / Collage by Kursiv.media

According to Magzum Mirzagaliyev, CEO of KazMunayGas (KMG), the company plans to boost its oil exports via Azerbaijan. He made this statement in an interview with the Azeri news agency Trend.

«On March 11, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will visit Azerbaijan. During bilateral meetings, my Azerbaijani counterpart Rovshan Najaf and I are going to sign an agreement on expanding Kazakhstan’s oil exports via Azerbaijan by 1.5 times,» Mirzagaliyev said.

Kazakhstan has exported oil via Azerbaijan’s territory since March 2023. Currently, the country sends 120,000 tons of oil via this route per month, Mirzagaliyev noted. Once the agreement is signed, this amount of oil will be increased by 60,000 tons to 180,000 tons per month. For comparison, Kazakhstan’s export to Germany is 100,000 tons of oil per month.

Under arrangements between KMG and SOCAR, the state oil company in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan is expected to export 1.5 million tons of oil per year from Tengiz to the Turkish port of Ceyhan via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Last year, Kazakhstan exported almost 1.4 million tons via this route.

At the same time, KMG can export its oil via the Baku-Supsa pipeline with a capacity of 5 to 6 million tons of oil per year.

«When we met with Rovshan Najaf, we agreed that SOCAR would send us an offer for the Baku-Supsa route with prices within a month,» Mirzagaliyev said.

The CEO of KMG has also proposed joint exploration projects to SOCAR executives.

«We agreed that we will review the possibility of joint projects in the sphere of oil production. On top of that, we have invited SOCAR to participate in our exploration projects in Kazakhstan. I’ve informed Mr. Najaf that in 2023 we adopted the so-called Improved Model Contract (IMC) for subsoil use. This was an instruction of the president of Kazakhstan. With the help of IMC, we can make the best offer to our investors interested in exploration and production in challenging areas,» he said.

Mirzagaliyev also said that the expansion project on Tengiz is expected to be launched in 2025. When the project is fully operated, it will boost the oil output from 12 million to 39 million tons of oil per year.

President Tokayev is on an official visit to Azerbaijan on March 11-12. He is expected to meet Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and take part in the first meeting of the Kazakh-Azerbaijani Supreme Interstate Council.