By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline that takes Azerbaijani oil to Europe via Turkiye exported about 14.1 million tons of crude oil in the first half of 2022, Azernews reports per bp Azerbaijan.

The oil was loaded on 148 tankers exported from Turkiye’s Ceyhan terminal.

From January-June, about $49 million was spent on operating expenditure and about $9 million in capital expenditure on the BTC project.

Overall, BTC exported over 516 million tons of crude oil loaded on 5,087 tankers to the world markets since the pipeline became operational in June 2006 till the end of the second quarter of 2022.

On 23 March 2022, BTC reached a significant milestone by loading the 5,000th tanker of oil transported from the Sangachal terminal near Baku across Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ceyhan in Turkiye.

The BTC pipeline currently carries mainly the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli crude oil and the Shah Deniz condensate from Azerbaijan. Other volumes of crude oil and condensate also continue to be transported via BTC.

The BTC pipeline is a transport line for Azerbaijani oil from the Caspian Sea to the port of Ceyhan in Turkiye, and then to European markets via the Mediterranean Sea. The official opening ceremony of the BTC oil pipeline took place in Turkiye in July 2006. The total length of the pipeline is 1,768 km, of which 443 km pass through the territory of Azerbaijan; 249 km to Georgia; 1,076 km to Turkiye. The projected capacity is 50 million tonnes of oil per year or one million barrels per day. Light oil produced at the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field is transported via BTC.