OREANDA-NEWS. During the negotiations of Russian president Vladimir Putin with his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev, the parties agreed to increase the annual capacity of Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline to 40mn metric tons of oil from present 23mn metric tons. This additional capacity can be used to fill Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline, Nursultan Nazarbayev said. Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline runs from Kazakh oil deposit Tengiz to Russian export terminal near the city of Novorossiysk .

Russian state controls 24% in this project, Kazakhstan owns 19% stake and Sultanate Oman has 7% stake. The largest private shareholder is ChevronCaspianPipelineConsortiumCompany with 15% stake. The idea for increasing the pipeline’s capacity was put forward by the companies, which extract oil Kazakh oil that is transported by the pipeline. For a long time, the Russian side did not agree to increase the pipeline’s capacity. According to Sergey Pravosudov, director of Russia ’s National Energy Institute, low oil transportation tariffs made this project unprofitable for Russia , which profits only from oil transportation through the pipeline.

Bulgaria, Greece and Russia approved the text of the agreement to build Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline to transport Russian oil from Caspian Sea to the Balkans in Feb 2007. A consortium of Russian companies comprising Transneft, Rosneft and Gazprom neft owns 51% in the project. Bulgaria and Greece have 24,5% each. Kazakhstan aims to get a share in this project, too. Russia does not plan to sell its stake. However, it can support the initiative of Kazakhstan to acquire a part of stakes belonging to Bulgaria or Greece.