Gigantic Oil Pipeline From Caspian Sea Opened Today

ABC News: First Pipeline From Caspian Sea Opened

First Pipeline From Caspian Sea Opened, Seen As Move Away From Middle East Oil Dependence

By year's end, the 1,100-mile pipeline is to ship up to 1 million barrels a day to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

The U.S.-backed pipeline realizes several crucial goals for Washington, including reducing dependence on Russian pipelines and avoiding Iran. While the pipeline crosses areas plagued by separatist conflicts, raising security concerns, the countries hope it will be a catalyst for calm and prosperity as well.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, or BTC, pipeline aims to boost access by the energy-hungry West to the rich Caspian fields, estimated to hold the world's third-largest reserves. Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan all claim shares of the undersea wealth.

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The New Zealand Herald: Oil pipe to loosen Opec grip turned on

Its architects and investors claimed the pipeline would shore up energy supplies in the US and Europe for the next half century.

The goal of the project which makes its tortuous way from the shores of the Caspian in Azerbaijan, through Georgia to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey is to ease the West’s reliance on the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

The project, known as BTC, has driven a wedge between the US and Russia, triggered political unrest in the countries it passes through and their neighbours, and sparked concern at extensive damage to the environment

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BakuTODAY.net: Israel seeking BTC transit

11/05/2006


The transportation of oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main export pipeline to Middle Eastern countries via Israel will be possible in the future, the Israeli ambassador in Baku Arthur Lenk has said.

He said the pipe to take Caspian oil to world markets, which will be fully put into operation in the coming weeks, lies 400 kilometers to the north of Israel, which makes it possible for his country to receive BTC oil.

“I believe the issue is open and its materialization in the future looks real,” he said

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August 8, 2008


The first major attack on the pipeline took place only last week - not in Georgia but in Turkey where part of it was destroyed by PKK separatist

Output from the pipeline, which is 30 per cent owned by BP and carries more than 1 per cent of the world's supply, is likely to be on hold for several weeks while the fire is extinguished and the damage repaired.

But the threat of another attack by separatists in Georgia itself is very real.

Only a few days before the Turkish explosion, Georgian separatists threatened to sabotage the pipeline if hostilities continued.

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August 11, 2008


BP played down claims by Georgia that Russian warplanes had staged a bombing raid near the pipeline over the weekend. The company insisted that the fighting posed no threat to the underground pipeline, but it said that an investigation had been started into the cause of a mysterious fire that broke out on the Turkish section of the pipeline just 48 hours before fighting began in South Ossetia. The fire, which was still burning yesterday and led to the pipeline’s closure, started on Tuesday at one of about 90 valves that control the flow of crude oil. Kurdish rebels from the separatist PKK group later claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place at Refahiye, in the Erzincan province of Turkey, several hundred miles from Georgia. However, the incident took place outside the PKK’s normal area of activity.

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