BP Azerbaijan: BTC is a huge technical achievement

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil export pipeline company, operated by BP, has safely transported one billion barrels of Caspian crude to world markets.

The one billionth barrel of oil was pumped into BTC at the Sangachal Terminal near Baku in early September. It then was transported across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey recently reaching the Ceyhan Marine Terminal where it was loaded on the 1275th tanker - the Nippon Princess. The tanker with the one billionth barrel of oil on board departed Ceyhan for Rotterdam today, on September 13.

Rashid Javanshir, BP Azerbaijan President, says that 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. The BTC pipeline project was a monumental technical achievement that has also set an industry benchmark for environmental performance and social responsibility.

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 Shah Deniz fields in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. Following the signature of a new transportation agreement in July 2010, crude oil from Turkmenistan has started to be transported. 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 tonnes).


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