Azerbaijan hopes to include Kazakhstan in BTC in 2004

Interfax
April 28 2004

Azerbaijan hopes to include Kazakhstan in BTC in 2004

Astana. (Interfax) – Azerbaijan hopes that Kazakhstan will become a
participant in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project in 2004, Azerbaijani
Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov said at the forum Caspian:
Politics, Economics, Business in Astana on Wednesday.

“At the moment 34 companies from 16 countries are participating in
transport projects in the Caspian region. Azerbaijan considers the
Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline projects to be
the main ones,” he said.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum projects are
“necessary conditions” for the economic development of the Caspian
region and will strengthen its energy security,” he said.

He said that Azerbaijan shares the position of Kazakhstan regarding
the laying of pipelines along the Caspian seabed.

Kazakh First Deputy Foreign Minister Kairat Abuseitov said at the
forum that Kazakhstan is against having to agree laying underwater
communications and pipeline in the Caspian with all of the littoral
states. These issues should be agreed with the Caspian states through
whose sectors they pass, and not with all states in the region, he
said.

Khalafov also said that the implementation of oil and gas transport
projects in the region might be hindered by the unresolved
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict and the unstable political situation in
Georgia.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project will cost $3.6 billion. The future
pipeline will stretch 1,767 kilometers (443 km through Azerbaijan,
248 km through Georgia and 1,076 km through Turkey) and will have a
capacity of 50 million tonnes of oil per annum

Participants in the BTC project are: British Petroleum (30.1%), SOCAR
(25%), Unocal (8.9%), Statoil (8.71%), TPAO (6.53%), ENI (5%), Itochu
(3.4%), ConocoPhillips (2.5%), Inpex (2.5%), TotalFinaElf (5%), and
Amerada Hess (2.36%).

Kazakhstan hopes to transport 10 million – 20 million tonnes of oil
per year through the pipeline. The republic produced over 51.3
million tonnes of oil and condensate in 2003.

Construction of the 690-km Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline should begin
in the third quarter 2004. The pipeline will transport gas from the
Shah Deniz field, which has reserves of 625 billion cubic meters of
gas and 101 million tonnes of condensate.