EURASIANET /USA
David O’Byrne
Azerbaijan’s main oil producer, BP, has shut down the oil pipeline it operates to Georgia’s Black Sea coast for the month of June due to concerns over the safety of oil tankers in the Black Sea.
BP described the closure of the Baku-Tbilisi-Supsa pipeline as “temporary” in a written response to queries from Eurasianet. The company also confirmed that the pipeline had previously been closed for extended periods from March 15 to the end of April, and then for the whole of May. It did not confirm when or if it expects the pipeline to open again.
The company said that in the meantime it would be rerouting the crude oil exports that would have gone to Supsa via another route, through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.
BP did not directly confirm that the closure was due to the ongoing war in Ukraine but said that the closure was “a precautionary measure” in case “safety concerns” led to a shortage of tankers entering the Black Sea to collect Azerbaijani crude from the pipeline’s terminal at Supsa.
Commercial shipping in the Black Sea has been significantly disrupted by the war in Ukraine. There have been multiple reports of mines placed by Ukraine to protect its coast having broken free and now presenting a danger to vessels in the sea.
BP’s confirmation was the first time that an official source has confirmed that Azerbaijan’s energy exports have been affected by the war in Ukraine.
The UK-based oil giant is Azerbaijan’s biggest oil producer. The country produced 11.1 million tons of oil over the first four months of this year, of which 77 percent was produced by BP and the rest by Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, according to data released in May by Azerbaijan’s energy ministry.
Rerouting exports from Supsa on the Black Sea to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean should be a relatively simple transition.
The BTC pipeline can transit up to 60 million tons of oil a year but has been operating at or around half capacity for some years now; last year it carried only 26.4 million tons.
The Baku-Supsa pipeline is much smaller, capable of carrying only around 7.2 million tons a year and last year carried only 4.2 million tons.