On 16 Jan, the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) received the first dividends from the project of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main export pipeline, named after Heydar Aliyev. As a result of the work in 2007, some $16.5mln was transferred to the Fund.
The pipeline was put into operation in 2006, and has brought dividends in a year. It once again testifies the successfulness of the project, which is the most optimal route to transport Azerbaijan's oil to the world markets. The Payment of dividends was envisaged in 2008 budget of the Fund.
Some 37.4mln tons of light oil produced from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli fields have been exportaed via Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline since its launching, a source stated at the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR).
In 2007 28.02mln tons of oil have were transported via this route. In December 2.756mln tons of oil was transported through the pipeline.
The BP-operated BTC is used for the transportation of the light oil produced from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli fields. The only two foreign participants in the project of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field development, the US companies ExxonMobil and Devon deliver their oil via the BTC. These companies were not the investors in the BTC construction and sell their oil via the Georgian port of Batumi, supplied by the railway.
The total length of BТС is 1.768km, including 443km-seion running via Azerbaijan, 249km section via Georgia and1.076km via Turkey. The pumping capacity of the pipeline is over 50mln tons of oil (1mln barrels of oil a day). Next year the discharge capacity will expanded to 1.2mln barrels of oil a day, at the expense of pumping the chemical reagents.
The construction of pipeline was commenced in April 2003 and it was fulfilled with oil on 18 May 2005. The oil reached the Georgian section of the oil pipeline on 10 August 2005, the Turkish section on 18 November 2005, the Ceyhan terminal on 28 May 2006.
A total of $4bln has been spent for the construction of the BTC 1,768km pipeline. This sum does not include the fulfillment of the pipeline, financial expenses and payment of the bank rates. The credit allocated for the project totalled $2.6bln.
The BTC Co. shareholders are: BP (30.1%); AzBTC (25.00%); Chevron (8.90%); Statoil (8.71%); TPAO (6.53%); ENI (5.00%); Total (5.00%); Itochu (3.40%); INPEX (2.50%); ConocoPhillips (2.50%) and Hess (2.36%).