First Azerbaijani crude from BTC pipeline arrives at Ceyhan

First Azerbaijani crude from BTC pipeline arrives at Ceyhan

Edinburgh (Platts)--28May2006

First Azerbaijani crude to pass all the way along the 1,774 kilometer
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline has arrived at Turkey's Mediterranean terminal at
Ceyhan, BTC group Chief Executive Michael Townshend said late Sunday.
Speaking by telephone from Ceyhan, Townshend told Platts that the first
tanker sailing of Azeri light crude from Ceyhan would take place "around
the middle to end of this week."
Townshend said the Ceyhan facilities would have to be checked for a
couple of days and then the oil from the pipeline would have to be pumped up
into at least one of the seven giant storage tanks before being gravity fed
into the waiting tanker which docked at Ceyhan on Saturday.
The BTC pipeline has the capacity to ship up to 1 million b/d of oil from
the BP-operated Azeri Chirag Guneshli project in the Caspian Sea.
Current BTC shareholders are: BP (30.10%); Azerbaijan's state oil
company Socar (25%); Unocal (Chevron) (8.9%); Statoil (8.71%); Turkey's TPAO
(6.53%); Eni (5%); Total (5%); Itochu (3.4%); Inpex (2.5%); ConocoPhillips
(2.5%); and Delta-Hess (2.36%).
--John Roberts, john_roberts@platts.com

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