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Weekly Lists
March 22, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 29
bne:
Infrastructure
Azerbaijan’s Socar suspends oil transit via Russia in favour of pipeline to Turkey
Albania government approves concession contract for Kukes airport
Azerbaijan’s Socar has suspended its oil transit through Russia, the national oil company said on March 15. Instead of using the Russian route, it is diverting flows to its Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline to Turkey from the Caspian Sea, which has been hit by fall- ing exports since Turkmenistan switched its oil flows to a Russian port earlier this year.
“It was decided that exports via the northern route through Rus- sia would be diverted to BTC pipeline for one month,” the head of Socar’s trading arm Adnan Ahmadzadeh told Reuters.
According to the March loading schedule from Novorossiisk ob- tained by the news agency, Socar had two 80,000-tonne cargoes of Siberian Light crude for loading on March 19-20 and 30-31, but both were cancelled.
The Albanian government said on March 20 it approved the signing of the concession contract for the revitalisation of the Kukes airport that will become the second operational airport in the country.
The Socialist government of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama promised that Kukes airport will be made operational and new airports would be built after the exclusive rights over international flights held by Tirana airport, currently the sole airport in the country, were removed in 2016. Kukes airport, located in the northeast part of Albania, is currently out of operation. It will offer low-cost flights.
The concession contract has been awarded for 35 years while the period for the rehabilitation works is 24 months. The value of works is €8mn, Energy and Infrastructure Minister Belinda Balluku said in the statement.
German company Airport Consulting Partners GmbH Beratende Ingenieure will form a council of engineers and provide technical supervision for the construction of a civil aviation airport based on the Tashkent-East airfield, Uzbek railway company Uzbekiston Temir Yollari said in a statement last week.
Uzbekistan might be working its way up to introducing Fifth Freedom of Air or similar policies in the near future. The Central Asian country has recently allowed foreign airlines, “designated by the intergovernmental accords on air traffic” to fly to Nukus airport “without frequency limits”, the report noted.
German company Airport Consulting to help build Tashkent- East airport