OREANDA-NEWS. February 27, 2010. Vagif Aliyev, the head of the SOCAR Investment Management Department and chairman of the Cross Caspian’s Board of Directors, says that the oil transshipping contract between TCO and Cross Caspian was signed for oil transportation through ports Batumi and Kulevi and while currently export is carried out through Batumi the Kulevi-based terminal was able to meet a condition of acceptance and loading on aframax tankers with tonnage of 80,000 only by October 2009.

“Time of cargo distribution between Batumi and Kulevi came in fact after the first loading on aframax. But TCO set a condition of equipping thre port with special equipment to control streams, height and direction of waves. Such a system has been created and this March the TCO specialists will conduct the final, as we expect, monitoring to confirm terminal’s ability to dispatch Kazakh oil. After that we hope that our terminal will start accepting certain volumes, moreover taking into account stoppage of TCO oil export via Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline,” he said.

Under the contract, supplies should be divided equally between Batumi and Kulevi but supplies already carried out in 2009 will not be taken into account when calculating this parity.

“We have not right to indicate the oil owner the direction of export and dispatch (they are chose on their application), but hope that transshipment through Kulevi will start already in 2010,” Aliyev said.

The Kulevi-based terminal is able to meet TCO’s orders and carry 4 or 5 million tons of its oil a year.