Kazakhstan joining Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline project
Kazakhstan is close to the completion of the legal registration of documents on joining the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Kazakh Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Sauat Mynbayev said here on Wednesday at a meeting of the Kazakh-Azerbaijani intergovernmental commission for economic cooperation, Itar-Tass reports.
“The Kazakh side informed the Azerbaijani colleagues that literally tomorrow (April 24) the republic’s upper house of parliament (Senate) will consider the draft law on the ratification of the republic’s agreement with Azerbaijan on support and assistance in the transportation of oil along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan system,” the minister specified.
He also noted that “experts of the Kazmunaigaz company are staying in Azerbaijan and we hope in the short run to settle all technical nuances linked with the formation of the seas part of the Kazakh-Caspian transportation system.”
The lower house of Kazakhstan’s parliament (Majilis) on March 26 approved the draft law on the ratification of the republic’s agreement with Azerbaijan on support and assistance in the transportation of oil along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan system. The document envisages the creation of a new scheme of transportation of Kazakh oil via the Caspian Sea with its further pumping through this pipeline. The new oil transport infrastructure will be created with the implementation of this project.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (sometimes abbreviated as BTC pipeline) is a crude oil pipeline that covers 1,768 kilometres from the Azeri-Chirag-Gyuneshli oil field in the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. It connects Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan; Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia; and Ceyhan, a port on the south-eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey, hence its name. It is the second longest oil pipeline in the world after the Druzhba pipeline. The first oil that was pumped from the Baku end of the pipeline on May 10, 2005 reached Ceyhan on May 28, 2006.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Company (BTC Co.) was founded during a document signing ceremony in London on 1 August 2002. The official ceremony launching construction of the pipeline was held on September 18, 2002. Construction began in April of 2003 and was completed in 2005. The Azerbaijan section was constructed by Consolidated Contractors International of Greece, and Georgia’s section was constructed by a joint venture of France’s Spie Capag and US Petrofac International. The Turkish section was constructed by BOTAS. Bechtel was the main contractor for engineering, procurement and construction.
All together, three official inauguration ceremonies were held. On 25 May 2005, the pipeline was officially inaugurated at the Sangachal terminal by President Ilkham Aliyev of the Azerbaijan Republic, President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia and President Ahmet Sezer of Turkey, joined by President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, as well as United States Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman. The inauguration of the Georgian section of the pipeline was hosted by President Mikhail Saakashvili at the BTC pumping station near Gardabani on 12 October 2005. The inauguration ceremony at the Ceyhan terminal was held on 13 July 2006.