Pipeliners

04 April 2007 - Upstream onLine - Kazakhstan wants to buy a stake in the trans-Balkan oil pipeline from the governments of Greece or Bulgaria to help crude from the Caspian Sea bypass the congested Turkish Bosphorus Straits, the Kazakh Energy Minister Baktykozha Izmukhambetov said today. "We are interested in this project. There is a preliminary agreement that we will join this project within a 49% share belonging jointly by Greece and Bulgaria," Izmukhambetov told Reuters. Earlier this year, Russia, Greece and Bulgaria signed a deal covering construction of a 279 kilometre oil pipeline to run between the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burgas and the Greek Aegean Sea port of Alexandroupolis. The route would bypass the busy Turkish straits, which already trans-ship large volumes of Russian and Kazakh crude from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Russian oil producers Rosneft and Gazprom Neft and crude oil pipeline monopoly Transneft will have 51% in the project, while Greece and Bulgaria will share the remaining 49%. "Our share depends on terms and conditions. It may happen that we will acquire half of the 49% stake," Izmukhambetov said. He said Kazakhstan planned to start talks in April, first with Greece and then with Bulgaria. He added the Russian companies had made it clear there would not resell their stakes in the pipeline. The pipeline will be able to pump up to 1 million barrels per day.