Azerbaijan plans to construct more tankers

Azerbaijan is launching a new shipbuilding enterprise in 2010. Presumably it will build tankers to transport Kazakh oil to Azerbaijan by bypassing Russia. This of course will decrease Russia’s influence on Kazakhstan’s oil transportation strategy. For the last several years Azerbaijan has been increasing its oil tanker fleet and most of the newly purchased tankers are used to transport Kazakh oil to Azerbaijan.

Baku is also investing in the development of port infrastructure so that it will become easier to transport oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. According to statistics Kazakhstan produced 70 million tonnes of oil in 2008. In 2010 this will increase to 81 million tonnes and by 2015 Kazakhstan will be producing over 130 million tonnes of oil annually.