Azerbaijan, Baku, 18 March / corr Trend S.Agayeva / Kazakhstan's joining to the Baku - Tbilisi -Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline will depend on oil pumping tariffs, Serik Perimbetov, the Kazah Ambassador to Azerbaijan, said in talks with journalists in Baku on 18 March.
"It is important to know which tariffs will be offered, and only then the volumes will be defined," the Ambassador said. It is possible to decrease the tariffs and benefit form the volume of oil transportation.
Kazakhstan has always supported the multi-route transportation of its oil and we regard it as an alternative route, he said
"Oil which Kazakhstan intends to pump via BTC will be produced from Kashagan, where the work was delayed. Now we insist on fast completion of the general work in Kashagan," the diplomat said.
The total length of BТС is 1.768km, including 443km-section running via Azerbaijan, 249km section via Georgia and1.076km via Turkey. Pumping capacity of the pipeline is over 50mln tons of the oil (1mln barrels of oil a day). Next year, the discharge capacity will be expanded to 1.2mln barrels of oil per day, at the expense of pumping the chemical reagents.
A total of $4bln has been spent for the construction of BTC- 1,768km pipeline. This sum does not include fulfilment of the pipeline, financial expenses and payment of the bank rates. The credit allocated for the project totalled $2.6bln.
Shareholders of BTC Co includes: BP (30.1%); AzBTC (25%); Chevron (8.90%); Statoil Hydro (8.71%); ТРАО (6.53%); Eni (5%); Total (5%); Itochu (3.40%); Inpex (2.50%); ConocoPhillips (2.50%) and Amerada Hess (2.36%).