Oil and oil-related shipments from Georgia’s Black Sea port of Batumi fell 51.2 % in 2018 compared to 2017 according to Reuters. An amount of crude oil was re-routed to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium in 2018, whereas some fuel oil was sent to the port of Taman in Russia and Georgia’s other Black Sea port of Kulevi.
Specifically, the decrease occurred partly because Azerbaijan opts to transfer its oil via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline or via its own terminal in Kulevi, rather than from Batumi, which is operated by a Kazakh company.
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Also, crude and refined oil shipments from Batumi reached a total of 1.030 million tonnes in 2018, less than 2.109 million tonnes in 2017.
During December, overall shipments reached the 51,709 tonnes, in comparison to 26,761 tonnes the previous month and 221,210 tonnes in December 2017.
Moreover, as Reuters noted there were no shipments of crude oil, jet fuel, fuel oil and naphtha in December.
Mainly, crude and refined oil products from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are shipped out of Georgia’s Black Sea ports of Batumi, Supsa, Poti and the 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.