BUDAPEST, May 22 (Reuters) - Hungarian oil and gas group

MOL and state-owned energy company MVM will jointly

charter tankers to ship up to 160,000 metric tons of crude oil a

year from Azerbaijan to further diversify energy supply for

Hungary and Slovakia, MOL said on Thursday.

The companies will both transport crude oil to the Ceyhan

terminal in Turkey via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline,

from where it will be distributed to MOL Group's markets, with a

particular focus on Hungary and Slovakia, the statement said.

Through this cooperation, MOL could increase the volume of

alternative crude oil processed in its refineries by up to

160,000 tons per year, the companies said.

They added that this was equivalent to about two tanker

shipments of Azeri crude a year, on top of the one shipment a

month that MOL is already importing.

MOL bought Chevron's ( CVX ) stake in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli

(ACG) oilfield in the Caspian Sea in 2020 and MVM announced last

year that it would buy a 5% stake in Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas

field.

MOL has two refineries in Slovakia and Hungary fed with

Russian crude via the Druzhba pipeline's southern spur but has

been investing in technology needed to shift away from Urals

oil.

However, progress has been slower than expected, MOL said

last year, adding that it can refine up to 30-40% non-Russian

crude at its refineries in Slovakia and Hungary, which could

rise to 100% by 2026 with investments that are under way.