Azernews.Az

The suspension on August 6 of oil flowing through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) export pipeline and the west-bound Baku-Supsa pipeline has given Iran a trump card in its struggle for control over new routes of Caspian hydrocarbon supplies to world markets.
The world`s fourth-largest oil producer has said its planned Neka-Jask oil pipeline could be a rival route and a replacement to the existing BTC pipeline which pumps Azerbaijan`s oil to Turkey through Georgia.
Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, International Affairs Director at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), has told the local press that the explosion which hit the Turkish section of the BTC, and the subsequent suspension of oil flow through the conduit, had questioned the international project`s security and its environmental reliability.
"Not only the Turkish section but also that in Georgia may face a threat any time," he said. Ghanimifard also mainatined that the Iranian pipeline was not in any way inferior to BTC in terms of its technical capacities.
Iran`s Deputy Oil Minister for International Affairs, Hossein Noghrehkar-Shirazi, said Russia and Kazakhstan were ready to contribute to the construction of the Neka-Jask pipeline.
Work is under way to route the pipeline and develop a feasibility study. Iranian officials say the new pipe will stand out for its cost-effectiveness.
The undoubted advantage of the conduit is the fact it will run through the territory of a single country - stretching from Iran`s Caspian port of Neka to the port of Jask, a southern Iranian city on the Gulf of Oman near the Persian Gulf.