KIEV, Ukraine, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Oil from Azerbaijan is one of the options for filling the capacity of the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline, the Ukrainian energy minister said from Kiev.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Yury Boiko said Azerbaijan offered his country up to 8 million tons of oil, which he said could help fill the key oil artery, the National News Agency of Ukraine reports.
The 419-mile pipeline had been operated toward Russia following supply concerns. Russian oil is delivered to the Odessa-Brody pipeline from a junction of the Druzhba pipeline, the longest in the world.
Kiev said it was examining alternative suppliers to help shuttle oil through the pipeline in its intended direction.
"Today we have several options for downloading," Boiko was quoted as saying. "Together with the existing indirect mode of the system to pump Russian oil there are proposals from Belarus for transit of Venezuelan oil of up to 5 million tons per year and proposals from Azerbaijan to supply Ukraine with 8 million tons a year in direct mode."
Ports at Odessa are expecting two oil tankers worth of oil each month under the terms of an October contract between Kiev and Sofia.
