India will receive crude oil from the Caspian Sea region in October, the first shipment from the region, as part of diversifying its sources of energy supplies.

This has become possible due to the efforts of petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, who had engaged central Asian oil rich countries of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan for expanding energy sources beyond the west Asia, a Press Trust of India (PTI) report said Friday, quoting official sources.

The 1,764-km Baku (Azerbaijan)-Tblisi (Georgia)-Ceyhan (turkey) pipeline would pour Caspian crude on the Mediterranean Sea port next month.

The first oil for the outside world from the Caspian region has been taken by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), which would ship it from the Mediterranean Sea through Suez Canal to its Mumbai refinery.

Prior to BTC pipeline, the Caspian Sea countries had no outlet to sell their oil to outside world.

Sources said the efforts of Aiyar, who in June this year linked Indian oil firms to the British Petroleum, the operator of the BTC pipeline and owner of the crude, would radically change the geopolitics of oil as energy-hungry India gets access to the oil- rich region. India is expected to import 100 million tons of crude oil this fiscal, more than half of which is to come from the gulf region (West Asian countries).

The BTC pipeline was commissioned in May, with first oil produced in Azerbaijan being pumped into it. That oil will flow at Ceyhan, the Turkish port city on Mediterranean Sea, in October.

This oil has been picked by BPCL. While BPCL has contracted the first 6,000 barrels of oil from the Caspian region, Aiyar moots using an Israeli pipeline if it was to get larger volumes from the central Asian and Caspian Sea region. The 254-km long Eilot- Ashqelon pipeline could be used for transporting east Mediterranean crude to the Red Sea, from where it can be shipped to India.

Oil could be pumped from the Caspian region into BTC pipeline to reach the Mediterranean Sea, from where it could be pumped into the Israeli pipeline for very large crude carriers (VLCCs) to pick up at red sea for transporting it to India.

Russia had also proposed to use the Israeli pipeline for exporting oil to Asia. Russia had long been considering increasing its oil sale to Asia, whose demand for oil has surpassed that of Europe. India, among big Asian importers, is intentionally reducing its dependence on the oil from the gulf.

The Israeli pipeline provides an alternative for oil companies and saves their oil tankers, which are too big to pass through the Suez Canal, from going all the way around Africa to supply crude to Asian buyers.

India, which imported 95.9 million tonnes in 2004-05, has not been able to source any crude from the Caspian Sea region due to absence of links with major exporting ports there.

Source: Xinhua