In Khristenko's opinion, the adoption of this agreement is a sensible move if it runs for at least fifteen years.
His said that the interests of both sides had to be taken into account and that they should be reflected in legal documents at the level of the two states' governments.
The minister also reported that the current agreement between Azerbaijan and Russia on oil transit along the northern route envisaged the transportation of 2.7 million tonnes of oil.
When talking about the possibility of sending Russian oil along the Baku-Novorossiisk route to be pumped subsequently through the Baku-Tbilisi-Cehyan (Turkey) pipeline, Khristenko said that Russia's strategic plans involved transporting oil along three routes. The first is through the Baltic, "where we send 42 million tonnes of oil for export, and in the next eighteen months should send 60 million tonnes," from the Pacific coast and through the Kola Peninsula on the Barents Sea.
