AZERBAIJAN: CONSTRUCTION WORK BEGINS ON AN AMBITIOUS PIPELINE SET TO CARRY OIL FROM THE CASPIAN SEA TO TURKEY

Record ID: 218586

  • Title: AZERBAIJAN: CONSTRUCTION WORK BEGINS ON AN AMBITIOUS PIPELINE SET TO CARRY OIL FROM THE CASPIAN SEA TO TURKEY
  • Date: 18th September 2002
  • Summary: (W5) SANGACHAL, AZERBAIJAN (SEPTEMBER 18, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. WIDE OF HALL 0.04 2. GVs AZERI PRESIDENT HAYDAR ALIYEV ADDRESSING AUDIENCE (2 SHOTS) 0.10 3. MV TURKISH PRESIDENT AHMET NECDET SEZER LISTENING TO SPEECH 0.16 4. MV U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY SPENCER ABRAHAMS LISTENING TO SPEECH (SITTING NEXT MAN) 0.22 5. W
  • Embargoed: 3rd October 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SANGACHAL, AZERBAIJAN
  • Country: Azerbaijan
  • Reuters ID: LVAXOBLS583PRDERJQF4Q2H1FFW
  • Story Text: Work has begun on an ambitious oil pipeline project
    that is set to carry oil from the land-locked Caspian Sea to
    Turkey. The pipeline, expected to be completed over the next
    two years, will put crude oil from the region in the reach of
    the world markets.



    The ceremony signalling the start of the construction
    work was held on Wednesday (September 18) at a pipeline
    construction site on Azerbaijan's Caspian shoreline.

    Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, Turkish
    President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, Azeri President and host Haydar
    Aliyev, United State's Energy Secretary Spencer Abrahams were
    present at the official ceremony in Sangachal on Wednesday.

    The three Presidents and the U.S. Energy Secretary gave
    a symbolic helping hand as a trench was dug, marking the
    beginning of pipeline construction. A sealed time capsule was
    also buried at the site, reportedly containing a message for
    future generations.

    The pipeline is to export oil from Azerbaijan's offshore
    fields, through Georgia to a tanker terminal on the Turkish
    Mediterranean coast, making it the first major export route
    for Caspian oil to bypass Russia.

    It will stretch 1,786 kilometres (1,110 miles) and cost
    2.95 billion U.S. dollars. The construction work, carried out
    by a consortium led by British oil giant BP, is due to be
    completed in early 2005 and will be known as the
    Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan route. Up to one million barrels of crude
    oil a day are expected to be pumped through the pipeline.

    The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan route was chosen by the oil
    consortium over two other proposed routes via Iran or Russia
    and thought either of these would have been shorter and
    cheaper, neither were politically acceptable to U.S.-backed
    consortium.

    Russia had long-opposed to the U.S.-backed plan, which
    will break up Moscow's oil transportation monopoly in the
    region. But Moscow changed its mind after a political
    rapprochement with Washington in the wake of September 11.

    The new pipeline is also expected to lessen Western
    countries' reliance on oil supplies from the Middle-East.

    Experts say the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan route will become
    increasingly important with new oil discoveries in other
    Caspian nations, including Russia, Kazakhstan and
    Turkmenistan.

    Landlocked Caspian Sea is thought to hold the world's
    third biggest oil and gas reserves, most of them still
    untapped.


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