Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, July 17 -- Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey officially inaugurated the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline July 13 at Ceyhan, Turkey (see map, June 27, 2005, p. 61).
The pipeline, early envisioned as part of a US strategy to diversify the sources and flow of oil imports, is expected particularly to increase the efficiency of the European energy market. The first shipment of oil from the pipeline was loaded onto the British Hawthorn oil tanker in June.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan noted that the world's energy demand is expected to grow 60% by 2030, increasing the importance of the 1-million b/d line.
The BTC pipeline extends 443 km through Azerbaijan, 249 km through Georgia, and 1,076 km through Turkey to the Ceyhan marine terminal on the Mediterranean.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].