Russia to Get Cut of BTC

Azerbaijan's state oil company, SOCAR, has announced that Russian oil companies will be able to use the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline after it is completed.

"We have not yet held negotiations on this, it is simply an idea. But logic indicates the correctness of these proposals. At least in the winter period when the situation in the Black Sea and the Bosporus is tense, some oil could be pumped into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline and transported to the world market," a source in SOCAR was quoted as saying.

The source said that there are no technical problems involved in the reverse transportation of oil from Novorossiysk to Baku, as this pipeline was built to supply oil to Baku plants, and was later reversed. "If necessary, we can reverse the pipeline back from Novorossiysk to Baku," the source said.