Oil Shipments from Georgia’s Batumi port fall 29% in First Half

Oil and related shipments from Georgia’s Black Sea port of Batumi fell 29.2 percent in the first half of 2017 from a year earlier, a senior official at the terminal operated by Kazakh state energy firm KazMunaiGas said on Tuesday.

The official gave no reason for the fall, but KazMunaiGas has rerouted some shipments to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline this year.

Shipments of crude oil and refined oil products from Batumi fell to 1.146 million tonnes in January-June, from 1.619 million tonnes a year earlier, the official said.

The terminal shipped 3.377 million tonnes of oil and oil products last year, down from 3.616 million tonnes in 2015.

Shipments in June declined to 144,016 tonnes from 283,151 tonnes a year earlier, but up from 104,066 tonnes in May, the official, who asked not to be identified, said.

Crude and refined oil products from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are shipped out of Georgia’s Black Sea ports of Batumi, Supsa, Poti and a terminal in Kulevi.

Some products are transported across the Caspian Sea in small tankers, unloaded in the Azeri port of Baku and then sent by rail to Georgian ports for export to the Mediterranean. (cbw.ge)