The United States` special envoy for energy issues in Eurasia Richard Morningstar said Azerbaijan has always been a reliable transit country.
"And I hope it will remain so in the future," Morningstar said while visiting Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.
He also commented on the issue of assistance in continuation of the transportation of Kazakh oil from Tengiz field via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
Morningstar stressed Chevron had not appealed for the help in the resumption of transit of the Tengiz oil via the pipeline.
"The U.S. has always supported the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and I was very actively involved in this process in the years in government service. And we [the U.S.] supported the possibility of transporting the Kazakh oil via the BTC, but also supported the project of expansion of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) and Trans-Caspian Kazakh Oil Transport System to export new amounts of oil from the Caspian region," Morningstar said.
Since the start of the year TengizChevrOil has halted the shipping of oil from the Tengiz field via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline because of tariff increase. Oil previously supplied via the pipeline, is now transported by rail from Baku to the Georgian Black Sea ports of Batumi and Kulevi.

AzerTAc