Georgia, Azerbaijan connect sections of key oil pipeline
Associated Press Worldstream
October 16, 2004 Saturday 11:45 AM Eastern Time
BAKU, Azerbaijan — The presidents of Azerbaijan and Georgia on
Saturday presided over the welding of two sections of a strategic oil
pipeline seen as key to reducing Western dependence on Middle East oil.
Attending the ceremony on the border between the two ex-Soviet
republics, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliev and Mikhail Saakashvili
of Georgia hailed the US$3.6-billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline as
essential both for their countries and the entire region.
“This pipeline will help create new opportunities for our peoples,
and attract major resources,” Aliev said. “It will also contribute
significantly to the region’s security.”
Stephen Mann, the U.S. State Department envoy for Caspian energy
development, attended the ceremony. Mann sought to dismiss fears
about the pipeline’s security, saying it was being built far from
the zones of conflicts in the region.
Azerbaijan has been unable to solve a conflict over its
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, which has been under Armenian control since
1994, and Georgia has been haunted by conflicts in its breakaway
provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have run their own
affairs since the early 1990s.
The 1,760-kilometer (1,100-mile) pipeline runs from Baku, Azerbaijan,
to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, where oil from Azerbaijan’s Caspian
Sea fields will be loaded onto tankers for Western markets.
It is set to begin operation next year.