Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 14 / Trend E. Ismayilov /
It will be possible to talk about the possibility of further expanding the capacity of the oil pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and constructing a new oil pipeline Baku-Black Sea by implementing the second phase of development of Kazakh Kashagan field on the Caspian Sea, a source on the oil and gas market told Trend. The second phase of Kashagan is scheduled for 2018-2019.
He said that oil transport capacity of Azerbaijan, in particular the BTC pipeline and the railway, will be enough to transport oil within the first phase of Kashagan.
The source said the capacity of the pipeline is one million barrels. But earlier all necessary work was conducted on the pipeline to transport 1,2 million barrels of oil via BTC per day using chemical reagents.
On average, the BTC pipeline transports 800,000-900,000 barrels of oil daily.
The total length of BТС is 1.768 kilometers including a 443 kilometer section stretching via Azerbaijan, a 249 kilometer section via Georgia and a 1.076 kilometer via Turkey.
Construction of the pipeline began in April 2003. The pipeline filled with oil on May 18, 2005.
About $4 billion were spent on construction. Filling the pipeline, financial expenses and bank interest payments have not been included in this sum. Financial credit amounts to $2.6 billion.
BTC Co. shareholders include BP (30.1 percent); AzBTC (25 percent); Chevron (8.90 percent); Statoil Hydro (8.71 percent); ТРАО (6.53 percent); Eni (5 percent ); Total (5 percent ); Itochu (3.40 percent ); Inpex (2.50 percent); ConocoPhillips (2.50 percent) and Amerada Hess (2.36 percent).
Kashagan is one of the largest deposits in the world, discovered for the last 30 years with geological oil reserves of 4.8 billion tons. The commercial production was repeatedly postponed. At the moment, it is scheduled for late 2012.