Azernews.Az

BAKU – The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline has transported one billion barrels of Caspian crude to world markets, the BP-operated BTC oil export pipeline company announced Monday.

The one billionth barrel of oil was pumped into BTC at the Sangachal Terminal near Baku in early September. It then traveled across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey recently reaching the Ceyhan Marine Terminal where it was loaded on the 1,275th tanker – the Nippon Princess. The tanker with the one billionth barrel of oil on board departed Ceyhan for Rotterdam on Monday, BP Azerbaijan said.

"The one billionth barrel through BTC is an important milestone which clearly demonstrates that the pipeline has so far performed up to expectations since the start of line fill in 2005 – it is safe, efficient and reliable," says Rashid Javanshir, BP Azerbaijan President. "The BTC pipeline project was a monumental technical achievement that has also set an industry benchmark for environmental performance and social responsibility."

Javanshir said that in addition to its main benefit of relieving the growth of oil tankers through the Turkish Straits, BTC has been a source of major benefit to its neighbors along its length - some 730,000 people in 550 communities - through numerous jobs, it has offered, tens of millions of dollars it has spent in sustainable development projects and opportunities it has provided for their economic growth.

BTC’s throughput capacity is currently 1.2 million barrels per day. The oil transported via BTC to world markets mainly comes from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) and Shahdaniz fields in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. Following the signing of a new transportation agreement in July 2010, transporting crude oil from Turkmenistan began. BTC also has ongoing agreements to carry oil from the Tengiz field in Kazakhstan.

The current export rate via BTC is about 850,000 barrels per day and to-date the highest daily flow-rate of 1.06 million barrels was achieved on July 21, 2010.

The total volume of oil exported via BTC during 2010 is about 191 million barrels (around 25.8 million tons).

The BTC Co. shareholders are: BP (30.1%, operator); AzBTC (25.00%); Chevron (8.90%); Statoil (8.71%); TPAO (6.53%); ENI (5.00%); Total (5.00%), Itochu (3.40%); INPEX (2.50%), ConocoPhillips (2.50%) and Hess (2.36%).