Some 74% of Azerbaijani oil transported via BTC pipeline to world market

The first vice-president of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Khoshbakht Yusifzada has said that 74 per cent of Azerbaijani oil has been transported via The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline to the world market.

In other words, 484 million tons of the 654 million tons of oil extracted in Azerbaijan to date was exported to world markets through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, he said during his speech on the second day of the Baku Energy Forum, Report informs.

According to him, since the development of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil and gas fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, 573 million tons of oil have been produced until May 1, 2023.

To date, 208 bcm of gas has been produced from ACG fields. Yusifsada noted that more than 340 mln tons of oil produced at ACG came from Azerbaijan's profitable oil.

The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) is holding talks with foreign companies to speed up exploration work at Babek prospective structure located in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, Yusifzada said during his speech on the second day of the Baku Energy Forum.

According to him, a memorandum of understanding was signed with the French TotalEnergis company on May 10 of this year to start the works.

He added that reserves of Babek structure could be twice as big as those of Umid field which contains 200 bcm

"In general, SOCAR faces the tasks to increase drilling intensity in the fields "Umid" and "Absheron", reassess the results of exploration work in promising structures "Babek", "Nakhchivan", "Zafar-Mashal" and "Shafak Asiman", to drill new wells in these areas and accelerate the implementation of these projects," he said.

Baku-Tbilisi Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline carries oil from the Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli (ACG) field and condensate from Shah Deniz across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye. It links Sangachal terminal on the shores of the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan marine terminal on the Turkish Mediterranean coast.

In addition, crude oil from Turkmenistan continues to be transported via the pipeline. Starting in October 2013, we have also resumed transportation of some volumes of Tengiz crude oil from Kazakhstan through the BTC pipeline.

The pipeline that became operational in June 2006 was built by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline company (BTC Co) operated by BP. The pipeline buried along its entire length is 1768km in total length: 443km in Azerbaijan, 249km in Georgia, and 1,076km in Türkiye. The Azerbaijan and Georgia sections of the pipeline are operated by BP on behalf of its shareholders in BTC Co. while the Turkish section is operated by BOTAS International Limited (BIL).