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Works on expansion of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan’s capacity in Turkish section to be completed soon

Oil&Gas Materials 26 December 2008 18:41 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 26/ Trend , E. Ismayilov/ "In the next few days the work on expansion of capacity of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC) from 1mln barrels a day to 1.2mln barrels a day in the Turkish section will be completed," Murad Lekont, spokesperson for BP Turkey, said by telephone.

The work on expansion of capacity will be completed in the next few days, he said.

The capacity of pipeline is not expected to be increased to 1.6mln barrels a day and it is early to speak about it, Lekont said adding that this step aims at increasing capacity to 1.2mln barrels a day.

Though capacity of BTC will total 1.2mln barrels a day from early 2009, the date of filling up pipeline with this volume of oil is not available yet, BP Turkey spokesperson said earlier.

The value of expansion BTC capacity from 1mln barrels of oil a day to 1.2mln barrels a day is estimated at $69mln. Equipment will be installed on this pipeline through these funds to introduce retarding agents. The expansion work is conducted in sections of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

Since 2007, Azerbaijani oil has been delivered to world markets mainly through BTC.

The total length of BТС is 1.768km, including the 443km section running via Azerbaijan, the 249km section via Georgia and the 1.076km via Turkey. Construction of the pipeline was commenced in April 2003 and it was filled with oil on 18 May 2005.

A total of $4bln has been spent for the construction of BTC not including fill-up of pipeline, financial expenses and payment of the bank rates. The credit allocated for the project totaled $2.6bln.

BTC Company Shareholders 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%).

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