MOSCOW (Dow Jones)--Russia is ready to increase throughput at the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline to between 240,000 and 250,000 metric tons of oil per month, or about 60,000 barrels per day, a Russian government official said Thursday.
Oil exports from Azerbaijan has been affected by the armed conflict in neighboring Georgia, through which it exports most of its oil to Europe and other Western markets.
Last week, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which daily carries up to 1 million barrels of Azeri oil, was temporarily shut down due to a fire.
Russia's monopoly oil pipeline operator OAO Transneft (TRNFP.RS) said throughput at Baku-Novorossiysk in the last few months had been around 80,000 tons per month.
Transneft agreed to increase throughput upon a request made by Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR