Azerbaijan, Baku, 21 August / Trend corr. E.Ismayilov, S.Ilhmgizi / The light oil transport via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline was restored on 20 August, Huseyn Sagir, head of the Botas International Limited company on media issues, told Trend . The first Azerbaijani oil has already been filled to terminal reserves.
"The oil transport was launched yesterday. The repaired section was also tested on 20 August. Oil has already reached Ceyhan and goes into terminal," Sagir said. It is expected that oil will be loaded to tankers since the next week.
According to a source from the regional oil transport market, the tanker is expected to reach Ceyhan on 25 August.
Fire broke out on BTC section, which goes via the Turkish Arzincan city, on 5 August.
The total length of BTC is 1,768km, 443km running through Azerbaijan, 249 - Georgia and 1,706 - Turkey. The construction of the pipeline began in April 2003 and it was made operational on 18 May 2005.
The construction of BTC cost $4bln excluding the expenses incurred to fill the pipeline, financial expenditures and payment of the bank interest rates. The financial credit totaled to $2.6bln.
The shareholders of BTC are BP (30.1%), AzBTC (25%), Chevron (8.90%), StatoilHydro (8.71%), TRAO (6.53%), Eni (5%), Total (5%), Itochu (3.40%), Inpex (2.50%), ConocoPhilips (2.50%) and Hess (2.36%).
The correspondent can be contacted at: [email protected]