ECONOMY
CONTINUATION OF NEGOTIATIONS FOR KAZAKHSTAN TO JOIN BTC PROJECT
The meeting was planned for late June-early July, but on the request of the Azerbaijani side was postponed indefinitely because of the start of the vacation season. The present date fixed for the next round of negotiations, according to the ambassador was proposed by the Azerbaijani side and for the moment the agreement still remains valid.
During the negotiations in Baku the sides will discuss the inter-governmental agreement between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan and the draft transit agreement in which the commercial conditions for transporting Kazakhstani oil along the BTC has been determined. All documents plan to be signed before the end of the current year.
According to forecast assessment, Kazakhstan could transport up to 20 million tonnes of crude per year along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, although the initial volumes of oil is around 7.5 million tonnes per year, taking into account the 15% share of those companies in the BTC Co developing fields in Kazakhstan like ENI, ConocoPhilipps, INPEX, Total