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Contradictory information about the plans of Russian oil transportation through the Azerbaijani territory is received, writes Azerbaijani information portal "Minval.az."

Thus, the article notes that the President of State Oil Company of Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) Rovnag Abdullayev hastened to tell the press that negotiations with the Russian "Rosneft" have kicked off for the possible reverse of the Siberian oil called “Urals” through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline with the amount of 5 million tons per year. He further noted that the parties are negotiating over a possible partial transit of oil called “Urals” via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. According to him, they also consider the possibility of reprocessing of Russian oil in Baku’s recycling companies.

However, as noted in the material, "Rosneft" is puzzled by the statements of the Azerbaijani side. Neither SOCAR, nor the "Rosneft" company applied to Russian monopolist pipeline "Transneft" requesting to exploit Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in direction of Azerbaijan.

According to Vice-President of "Transneft" Mikhail Barkov, no one turned to them for that matter and nothing was coordinated. The article stresses that the implementation of the SOCAR plans may hit the interests of Lukoil which uses the pipe for pumping the Caspian oil from Makhachkala to Novorossiysk.

As noted in the material, the possibility of confusion of Azerbaijani oil brand “Azeri Light” and Russian “Urals” in Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline remains controversial. Although the density of the two types of oil API classification close - respectively 34.8 and 32, but in the sulfur there is a noticeable difference. The Azerbaijani oil with higher quality contains 0.15% of sulfur and the Russian 1.2%. Accordingly, there is a difference in price as well; barrels of Azerbaijani oil are higher in price with $ 10 on the International Petroleum Exchange.

"According to experts, the statements of the President of SOCAR about the reversing transportation of oil have some kind of political overtones. The Azerbaijani side wants to show that the preliminary intent on cooperation in the field of oil, which was noted during the working visit of President Putin to Azerbaijan recently, is realistic. Official Baku is trying to demonstrate that the cooled Russian-Azerbaijani relations get new sense," the material reads.