First shipment from BTC oil line set for May

Feb. 16, 2006
Azerbaijan's Minister of Energy and Commerce Natiq Aliyev said the first tanker to lift crude from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline will depart the Turkish terminal at Ceyhan in May.

Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 16 -- Azerbaijan's Minister of Energy and Commerce Natiq Aliyev said the first tanker to lift crude from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline will depart the Turkish terminal at Ceyhan in May.

Aliyev said pipeline construction is 99.7% complete. The most time-consuming work, he said, is to test all components of the pipeline, which is now half-full, with a total of 5 million bbl of crude oil pumped in.

He said the oil has reached the second pumping station in Turkey, and the third pumping station is being tested. Some 800 km of the pipeline in Turkey awaits line-fill.

Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].