Oil shipments from Georgia's Batumi port fall by more than a third in 2017
TBILISI (Reuters) — Oil and related shipments from Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi fell 37.6% in 2017, a senior official at the terminal, operated by Kazakh KazMunaiGas , said on Friday.
The official gave no reason for the sharp fall, but state-owned KazMunaiGas rerouted some shipments to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline last year.
Shipments of crude oil and refined oil products from Batumi totaled 2.109 MMt in 2017, down from 3.377 MMt in 2016, the official said.
Shipments in December fell to 221,210 tpy from 314,221 tpy earlier but were up from 144,376 tpy in November, said the official, who asked not to be identified.
Crude and refined oil products from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are shipped out of Georgia's Black Sea ports of Batumi, Supsa, Poti and a 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.
Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Susan Fenton
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