Russia is too late to lay pipeline like BTC, Azeri top energy official says

He added that Russia was too late to lay a pipeline like the BTC.

This move comes too late. Even, President Vladimir Putin acknowledged this. This step will not affect the prospects of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline, he underscored.

The grant project of the millennium-Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Pipeline is 1 768 kilometers long. The pipeline runs from Azerbaijan to Ceyhan, a Turkish port via Georgia and Turkey. The pipeline came on line on June 13, 2006.

Russia, Bulgaria and Greece signed a deal Thursday that would pave the way for construction of a pipeline linking Russian oil to the Mediterranean, bypassing the busy Bosporus Strait in Turkey.

The 280km pipeline from Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas to Alexandroupolis, northern Greece, was first conceived in 1993.

Costing $1.2 billion, the pipeline will be 51 per cent Russian owned, leaving EU-members Bulgaria and Greece with 24.5 per cent stake each in the venture, APA-Economics reports.