232,000 tons of oil shipped through northern route
232,000 tons of oil were shipped through the northern export pipeline in March, falling short of the forecast by 18,000 tons.  SOCAR Foreign Relations Department has told AssA-Irada that following negotiations with Russia's Transneft, it was decided to recover any deficit in oil transportation in the second quarter of this year. The deficit in oil transportation through the northern route constituted 135,000 tons over January-February.

Oil prices drop
The Iraqi war resulted sent down oil prices in world markets, in contrary to pundits' prognosis. The Azerbaijani oil price fell down from $35.87 to $24.96 on March 21. SOCAR Foreign Relations Department has told AssA-Irada that the decrease in oil price stopped and Azeri Light brand oil of Azerbaijan recovered up to $26.36.
The state budget has estimated crude price at $19.5 per barrel.

Arcadia to purchase April oil output
Arcadia, an international company, has won a procurement tender for the April consignment of 140,000 tons of Azerbaijani oil to be exported along the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline. The oil will be shipped from the Russian port of Novorossiysk on April 14-15, the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) told AssA-Irada. Novorossiysk will also ship a consignment of 120,000 tons of oil for the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC), however SOCAR did not say who this was destined for. Thus, Baku-Novorossiysk will hopefully carry a total of 260,000 tons of crude in April, compared with a planned 245,000 tons. Since Transneft has limited the amount of oil flowing to the port of Novorossiysk because of inclement weather, SOCAR has failed for three months running to export as much oil as it needs along this route. As a result, the shortage in the oil transportation through the northern route constituted 135,000 tons in January-February.SOCAR plans to export 2.5m tons of oil in 2003 as a whole.