From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Mon Feb 09 2004 - 09:50:21 EST
Azerbaijan plans to start building gas pipeline in third quarter of 2004
Excerpt from report in English by Russian news agency Prime-TASS
Baku, 5 February: The construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas
pipeline is expected to start at the end of the third quarter this year,
after the construction of the Azerbaijani part of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
(BTC) is completed, the president of the Azerbaijani state oil and gas
company SOCAR, Natiq Aliyev, told reporters on Thursday [5 February].
The construction of the 960-kilometre pipeline, linking the Azerbaijani
capital of Baku to Turkey's northeastern city of Erzurum via the
Georgian capital of Tbilisi, is expected to cost 900m US dollars.
The construction will be carried out in Azerbaijan by Greece's CCIC, in
Georgia by France-US Spie Capaq/Petrofac, and in Turkey by Turkey's
Botas, which are all engaged in the construction of BTC.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline is expected to be launched in
September 2006.
The construction of the pipeline is part of the project to develop the
Sah Daniz natural gas field on the shelf of the Caspian Sea, whose
reserves are estimated at about 1,000bn cu.m. of gas.
Gas supplies to Turkey via the pipeline are planned at 2.2bn cu.m. a
year during the initial phase with a possible increase to 6.6bn cu.m.
later.
BP Azerbaijan is the project's technical operator and supervises the
construction and utilization of the pipeline, while Norway's Statoil is
its commercial operator, responsible for the development of the new
company's business.
BP holds a 25.5-per-cent stake in the project and SOCAR has a
10-per-cent stake.
[Passage omitted: Other participants]
Source: Prime-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 1729 gmt 5 Feb 04
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