Transneft Suspends Part of Baku-novorossiysk Oil Pipeline

Russia’s oil transportation company, Transneft, continues works to suspend a part of the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline between Makhachkala and Baku due to Azerbaijan’s lack of initiatives to sign a commercial agreement on transit of oil, a representative of the transport monopoly Igor Demin told Itar-Tass on Friday.

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR state-run company has not begun official negotiations on a commercial agreement on transit of Azerbaijan’s oil via the territory of the Russian Federation after termination in last May of an intergovernmental agreement between Russia and Azerbaijan, which was a base for a transit agreement.

In early February, Transneft’s all obligations for transit of Azerbaijani oil will expire, and the transport company is ready to accomplish suspending of the Makhachkala-Baku unused part by pumping inert gas into the pipe, Demin said, adding the passage between Makhachkala to Novorossiysk would be used like previously for transportation of oil coming to the port of Dagestan’s capital city (Makhachkala).

In May 2013, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered to...