Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 8 -- Azerbaijan will join with Sarmatia International Pipeline Enterprise LLC to extend the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline from the Caspian region to the Baltic, said Azeri Industry and Energy Minister Natig Aliyev Oct. 4.
"Azerbaijan should take part in it," Aliyev said of the pipeline project. Aliyev will attend an energy summit Oct. 10-11 in Lithuania to discuss the line with leaders from other involved countries, Georgia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Poland.
Kestutis Kudzamanas, Lithuanian ambassador to Azerbaijan, said leaders at the meeting will sign an energy partnership deal creating a company to pipe oil to Europe.
Ukraine has long advocated its Odessa-Brody pipeline from the Black Sea to the Polish border as an alternative route, bypassing Russia, for carrying oil from the Caspian Sea area to Europe.
Previously, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan considered an Odessa-Brody pipeline as commercially unattractive, and it was not functioning as such. The line currently ships crude in the opposite direction, from Russia via Odessa, for export to the Mediterranean.
Poland's Economy Minister Piotr Wozniak last month said he had an initial declaration from Azeri officials that Caspian oil would flow via the Odessa-Brody pipeline, which eventually could be extended to the Polish port of Plock (OGJ Online, Sept. 27, 2007).
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
