An oil field belonging to the Azerbaijan State Oil Company (GNKAR).
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev
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Azerbaijan Halts Shipments of Oil through Georgian Ports
The transport of Azerbaijani oil through two Georgian ports has been temporarily suspended, RIA Novosti reports, citing president of the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic Rovnag Abdullayev. “The import and export of oil through the ports od Batumi and Kulevi were suspended last night,” Abdullayev stated Saturday evening. He said that the Azerbaijani company is considering exporting oil through the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline. He noted that that pipeline has a small capacity, however.
Simultaneously on Saturday evening, Georgian authorities stated that oil transport is continuing through the country’s port at normal volumes, Interfax reports. Georgian Prime Minister Vladimir Gurgenidze stated, “In spite of the fact that those pipelines are for transit and the Georgian economy does not depend on their functioning, they were subjected to bombing, but they were not damaged.”
The Georgian Foreign Ministry claims that Russian aviation struck the international Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline on Saturday. The ministry’s statement called the bombing of the pipeline “an encroachment by Russia on international energy security.”
www.kommersant.com
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