The international energy and commodity trading company Vitol (Netherlands) has signed an agreement with the Azerbaijan State Oil Company SOCAR to transport 1 million tons of Turkmen oil per year via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline since October 2021, Energy Diary reported.

As the newspaper notes, this agreement will reduce the supply of Turkmen oil from the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk by almost 50%.  Currently, the transit of oil from Turkmenistan through the Russian Federation is about 160 thousand tons per month.  The raw materials are transported by tankers across the Caspian Sea to the port of Makhachkala and from there they are pumped through an oil pipeline to Novorossiysk.  According to forecasts, now this amount will drop to 80 thousand tons per month.

Azerbaijan and Russia have been competing for Turkmen oil for a long time and with the new agreement the competition will enter a new phase, Energy Diary writes.