A contract on the transportation of Azeri oil via Russia to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk was signed on 18 February 1996. The trilateral contract was concluded between the Azerbaijan International Operating Company, SOCAR and Transneft. The oil transportation through the pipeline started on 25 October 1997. On 6 December 2006, after dispute over natural gas supplies from Russia, Azerbaijan announced that it will stop the exports of Azeri oil through the Baku–Novorossiysk pipeline starting on 1 January 2007. Although SOCAR continued decreased oil supplies through the Baku-Novorossiysk Pipeline, the Azerbaijan International Operating Company stopped using the pipeline starting from 1 April 2007 and SOCAR became the new operator of the Azerbaijani section. SOCAR temporarily stopped oil supplies through the pipeline in February 2008 due to a pricing disagreement with Transneft. Later that year, the disagreement has been resolved and SOCAR resumed pumping oil on old agreement terms. In August 2008, the transport of oil along the Baku–Novorossiysk pipeline was radically increased due to sabotage in Turkey and the conflict in Georgia forcing a temporary shutdown of the rival Baku-Ceyhan and Baku-Supsa pipelines. As of 2013, the Baku–Novorossiysk pipeline remains operational, although the volume of oil pumped through it is relatively low. In 2012, SOCAR exported a total of 25 million tons of oil along all routes. Among them, only 2 million tons were exported through the Baku–Novorossiysk pipeline. The remaining 20 million and 3 million tons were exported through the Baku-Ceyhan and Baku-Supsa routes respectively. The crude oil transported through Baku–Novorossiysk pipeline is developed within the framework of Early Oil Project, first stage of larger Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli project.
Route
The Baku–Novorossiysk Pipeline extends to, of which are laid in Azerbaijan. In Russia the pipeline runs through Dagestan. Original route run also through Chechnya as it exploited the existing Grozny–Baku and Grozny–Novorossiysk pipelines. However, during the Second Chechen War the Chechen section of the pipeline was closed and Transneft built a Chechenya- bypass loop.
Technical features
The diameter of the pipeline is and the capacity of annual transfer is equal to 5 million tons. In 2009, Azerbaijan pumped 2.55 million tonnes of oil through this pipeline while the volume was only 1.3 million tonnes in 2008
