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Georgian rail bridge blast hits Azeri oil exports
Sat Aug 16, 2008
BAKU (Reuters) - Azerbaijan suspended oil exports through ports in
western Georgia on Sunday after an explosion damaged a key rail bridge
there.
Georgia accused Russian troops of blowing up a railway bridge west of
the capital Tbilisi earlier in the day, saying its main east-west train
link had been severed. Russia strongly denied any involvement.
"Transportation of oil and oil products in the western direction by
railway has been suspended," Azerbaijan's state railway company said in
a statement read out on television.
It gave the bridge explosion as the reason for the suspension. "The
last shipment made by this railway contained 15 tanks," it said.
Another 72 oil tanks had been due to be sent to next-door Armenia
before the railway link was cut off, it said.
The railway line runs from Tbilisi, through the Russian-occupied
Georgian town of Gori, before splitting in three and running to the
Black Sea ports of Poti and Batumi and southwest to just short of the
Turkish border.
Azerbaijan is emerging as an important oil supplier to the West and its
fast economic growth depends heavily on revenues from oil exports from
the land-locked Caspian Sea.
Last week it suspended crude shipments via its key, BP-operated (BP.L:
Quote, Profile, Research) Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan link to Turkey after a
fire damaged it.
Earlier this week BP closed the pipeline taking crude from Azerbaijan's
Caspian port of Baku to the Georgian port of Supsa on the Black Sea,
citing fighting between Georgian and Russian troops.
A pipeline running from the Caspian Sea to Russia's Black Sea port of
Novorossiisk currently remains Azerbaijan's only oil export outlet.
(Reporting by Afet Mehteva; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by
Gerrard Raven)
Sat Aug 16, 2008
BAKU (Reuters) - Azerbaijan suspended oil exports through ports in
western Georgia on Sunday after an explosion damaged a key rail bridge
there.
Georgia accused Russian troops of blowing up a railway bridge west of
the capital Tbilisi earlier in the day, saying its main east-west train
link had been severed. Russia strongly denied any involvement.
"Transportation of oil and oil products in the western direction by
railway has been suspended," Azerbaijan's state railway company said in
a statement read out on television.
It gave the bridge explosion as the reason for the suspension. "The
last shipment made by this railway contained 15 tanks," it said.
Another 72 oil tanks had been due to be sent to next-door Armenia
before the railway link was cut off, it said.
The railway line runs from Tbilisi, through the Russian-occupied
Georgian town of Gori, before splitting in three and running to the
Black Sea ports of Poti and Batumi and southwest to just short of the
Turkish border.
Azerbaijan is emerging as an important oil supplier to the West and its
fast economic growth depends heavily on revenues from oil exports from
the land-locked Caspian Sea.
Last week it suspended crude shipments via its key, BP-operated (BP.L:
Quote, Profile, Research) Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan link to Turkey after a
fire damaged it.
Earlier this week BP closed the pipeline taking crude from Azerbaijan's
Caspian port of Baku to the Georgian port of Supsa on the Black Sea,
citing fighting between Georgian and Russian troops.
A pipeline running from the Caspian Sea to Russia's Black Sea port of
Novorossiisk currently remains Azerbaijan's only oil export outlet.
(Reporting by Afet Mehteva; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by
Gerrard Raven)