Public joint-stock company Ukrtransnafta will be ready to start pumping Azeri oil to Kremenchuk oil refinery (public joint-stock company Ukrtatnafta) from March 10, Ukrtransnafta First Deputy Director General Andriy Pasishnyk has told Interfax-Ukraine.

"Some 17,000 tonnes of Urals left to remove. It will take three days. We are ready to accept Azeri Light on March 10," he said.

Pasishnyk said that today 193,000 tonnes out of 210,000 tonnes of Urals oil has been removed.

Ukrtransnafta and Ukrtatnafta on November 3, 2016 signed a contract on supply of at least 1.3 million tonnes of Azeri Light oil a year to Kremenchuk oil refinery from 2017. The document envisages the resumption of the Odesa-Kremenchuk oil pipeline section that was idle for around five years.

Under the contract Ukrtransnafta arranged pumping of Urals oil from the Odesa-Kremenchuk oil pipeline to railway tankers and eventually pump it to the second line of the Druzhba oil pipeline.

Pasishnyk said that the contract with Ukrtatnafta on transportation of Azeri oil has guarantees: if the volumes of transportation decrease Kremenchuk oil refinery will compensate all expenses for replacement of Urals oil to Azeri Light to Ukrtransnafta.