Azernews.Az

By Sabina Idayatova

Around 1.6 million tons of Turkmen oil was transported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline in January-June 2013 which is similar with January-June 2012, the Azerbaijani State Statistics Committee said on July 20.

"During this period, around 1.6 million tons of transit Turkmen oil was transported from the Sangachal terminal through the BTC oil pipeline," the Committee reported.

Around 3.1 million tons of Turkmen oil was transported through the pipeline in 2012 and 2.1 million tons in 2011.

Turkmen oil is transported via BTC within SOCAR Trading's contract with Dragon oil extracting oil in Turkmenistan.

Turkmen oil transportation via the BTC has begun since July 2010.

SOCAR Trading buys oil from producers in Turkmenistan and delivers it through the Caspian Sea to Baku where there is an entrance flange of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline at the Sangachal terminal. BTC Co transports oil through the BTC pipeline and leases it to SOCAR Trading in the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

Furthermore, around 16.6 million tons of oil was transported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline in January-June 2013 compared to 17.4 million tons in January-June 2012.

"Three-quarters of entire oil transported via the country's main oil pipelines network fell to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in January-June," the Committee said.

Around 21.7 million tons of oil was transported via the country's main oil pipelines in the first six months of 2013.

The total length of the BТС pipeline, which carries crude oil from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli oil fields in the Caspian Sea to the Turkish Mediterranean coast, is 1,768 kilometers, including the 443 kilometer section running via Azerbaijan, the 249 kilometer section via Georgia and 1,076 kilometers via Turkey.

The pipeline first was filled with oil on May 18, 2005.

The design capacity of BTC is 1.2 million barrels of oil per day.

The shareholders of BTC are BP (operator - 30.1 percent), AzBTC (25 percent), Chevron (8.90 percent), Statoil (8.71 percent), TPAO (6.53 percent), Eni (5 percent), Total (5 percent), Itochu (3.40 percent), Inpex (2.50 percent), ConocoPhillips (2.50 percent) and Hess (2.36 percent).

Meanwhile, the South Caucasus gas pipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum) transported 2.1 billion cubic meters of gas in January-June 2013 compared to 2.2 billion cubic meters in January-June of the last year.

The length of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum Gas Pipeline exceeds 700 kilometers. The pipeline transports the gas produced in the Shah Deniz gas condensate field located in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. Gas is supplied to Georgia and Turkey. Azerbaijan appears as a buyer of gas as well.

The country's main gas pipelines transported 10 billion cubic meters of gas in the first half of 2013.