Dirty oil from Azerbaijan, stuck in the Atlantic for a month, was sold to Sardinia

After a month of wandering, a tanker with chloride-contaminated oil from Azerbaijan seems to have found a buyer. The ship went to Sardinia.

The Delta Blue tanker, which stood for a month off the coast of Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean, headed for Sardinia. According to AIS, on August 27, the vessel plans to arrive at Sardinia — to the terminal of the Saros refinery. On August 25, the ship passed the Strait of Gibraltar.

Factory on Sardinia is one of the largest in Italy and processes up to 15 million tons of oil annually.

The Delta Blue tanker loaded with a shipment of Azerbaijani oil in Turkish Ceyhan on July 17, after which the terminal was closed for six days due to the detection of organic chloride contamination, and the vessel itself stopped sailing to Northwestern Europe and began maneuvering off the coast of Portugal from August 25.

Reuters reported that the discount on the Azeri Light Azerbaijani variety has fallen to a historic high, however, apparently, the batch of raw materials on the Delta Blue tanker still could not be sold for a long time. Perhaps the sellers had to give in even more in price.

Initially, the Saros refinery belonged only to the Moratti family. However, now the shareholders of the plant are already two of the world's largest traders — Vitol and Trafigura.

Substandard oil can be used, but for this it is mixed with high-quality raw materials in such a proportion that the chloride level drops sharply and meets the standards.

As EADaily reported, the Italian Eni announced the receipt of contaminated oil at its refineries, followed by the Austrian OMV and the Czech division of the Polish Orlen confirmed the import of raw materials with chlorides that did not have time to reach the refining facilities. In Romania, in turn, a state of emergency was introduced, as a batch of contaminated oil of 90 thousand tons forced OMV Petrom to take raw materials for its refineries from the country's strategic reserves.

British BP, which is the operator of production in Azerbaijan and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, confirmed substandard oil.

"The results of the assessment confirm the presence of organic chlorides in some tanks at the Ceyhan terminal. Appropriate measures were taken to isolate these tanks, while loading from the tanks continued, which were assessed as meeting normal specifications," Tamam Bayatli, head of Communications at BP Azerbaijan, said on AnewZ.

The Romanian authorities are considering a scenario according to which there may be a Russian trace in the contamination of Azerbaijani oil with chlorides. Bucharest insists that the emergency situation threatens Europe's energy security. At the same time, facts and experts say that the reason for everything was more likely to be a technical error. Organic chlorides are used to increase oil production, but then must be removed before entering the pipeline, as they can damage refinery equipment.