Azerbaijan, Baku, 29 April / Trend corr S. Aliyev/ "Expansion of the carrying capacity of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline from 1mln barrels of oil per day to 1.2mln barrels will cost $69mln," Rashid Javanshir, Vice-President of BP Azerbaijan, said on 29 April. Through these funds, equipment for use of inhibitors (chemical re-agents) will be set up on the pipeline.
The work on expansion of the carrying capacity of the pipeline will be completed by the end of the year. At present, the pipeline pumps about 800,000 barrels of oil per day. By the end of the year, the figure will be raised to 1mln barrels of oil per day.
"Expansion of the pipeline's carrying capacity, besides increasing the transportation, will improve flexibility of the company when implementing the repair and other operations," Javanshir said.
The equipment will be set up by Azfen JV (SOCAR) - 60% share and Turkish Tekfen - 40% share. Azfen will also construct the same facilities on two pumping stations in Georgia. Construction of facilities in the pumping stations in Turkey intended for pumping chemical reagents into the pipeline is being carried out by Tekfen.
The further expansion of the pipeline's carrying capacity up to 1.6mln barrels per day may be carried out after 2009. This capacity can be obtained while constructing the bypass sections of pipeline in several places and establishment of additional facilities (pumps) in the pumping stations along with the route.
The Azeri Light oil has been supplied to the world markets mainly via BTC since 2007. In 2007, BTC pipeline transported 28mln tons of oil. Some 45mln tons of oil have been exported via BTC since the beginning of oil exportation via the pipeline. The prime cost of production of one barrel Azeri Light oil, being supplied from the field to Sangachal Terminal, totals $2.
The total BТС length is 1.768km, including the 443km section running via Azerbaijan, the 249km section via Georgia and the 1.076km via Turkey. The pumping capacity of the pipeline is over 50mln tons of oil (1mln barrels of oil per day).Pipeline construction started in April 2003 and became operational on 18 May 2005.
A total of $4bln has been spent for the construction of 1,768km long BTC pipeline, not including the fulfilment 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%); StatoilHydro (8.71%); TPAO (6.53%); ENI (5.00%); Total (5.00%), Itochu (3.40%); INPEX (2.50%), ConocoPhillips (2.50%) and Hess (2.36%).
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