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Second tanker with Azerbaijani oil for Belarus arrives in Odessa

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MINSK, 16 March (BelTA) – The second tanker with Azerbaijani oil for Belarus has arrived in Odessa. A tanker carrying oil bought from traders is expected to arrive in Klaipeda on 17 March, BelTA learned from Aleksandr Tishchenko, Press Secretary of the Belarusian state petrochemical concern Belneftekhim.

The spokesman said: “The second tanker with Azerbaijani oil arrived in the Odessa port Yuzhny yesterday and was slotted for discharging.”

Azerbaijani oil delivered by the first tanker is already being pumped towards Mozyr Oil Refinery. Oil will reach the refinery this week.

“Another tanker of oil bought from traders is expected to arrive in Klaipeda tomorrow,” the press secretary added.

BelTA reported earlier that the Azerbaijani company SOCAR will ship about 250,000 tonnes of oil to Belarus in March. The first tanker with oil for Mozyr Oil Refinery arrived in Odessa on 12 March. Belneftekhim Chairman Andrei Rybakov was quoted as saying that SOCAR may ship up to 1 million tonnes of oil to Belarus in 2020.

Apart from that, four tankers with oil for Belarus are expected to arrive in the Klaipeda port in March. The first one reached the Lithuanian port on 4 March.

Major Russian oil companies stopped shipping oil to Belarus on 1 January due to the absence of an agreement on prices. First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Dmitry Krutoi was quoted as saying that Belarus believes it is economically inadvisable and pointless to pay the same amounts of premiums to Russian companies. On 11 March Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Rumas said that Belarus had presented new oil acquisition proposals to Russia.

Belarusian oil refineries are expected to get a total of about 1 million tonnes of oil from various sources in March. In January and February the oil refineries operated at 50% of their capacity and processed about 1.8 million tonnes of oil.

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