• Wednesday, 16 May, 2012

BP steps up pace at Ceyhan terminal with crude tests

 29 September 2005 23:02 GMT

The BP-led BTC Company operating the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline has started testing and commissioning its new marine terminal at the Turkish port of Ceyhan, writes Kama Mustafayeva.

The work is being carried out using a million barrels of Azeri crude transported by tanker from Georgia's Supsa terminal to Ceyhan, where it was offloaded at the old Iraqi terminal before being piped to the new facility.

BP transported the crude by sea so that it could start the commissioning work at the terminal before oil flowing through the BTC pipeline reaches Ceyhan.

The new terminal's facilities include seven crude tanks and one relief tank, a loading jetty, a waste water treatment plant, equipment for separating contaminated water and facilities for disposing of water unloaded from the tankers.

The terminal and its 2.5 kilometre jetty are capable of accommodating two tankers of up to 300,000 tonnes each simultaneously.

"The terminal in Ceyhan is ready," said Socar boss and BTC company chairman Natik Aliyev, who added that the work will help bring it on stream about two weeks faster than otherwise.

BTC company is filling the pipeline in Georgia and, according to the schedule, oil should flow over the Georgian-Turkish border by 12 October.

The pipeline will then start filling its longest section the 1076-kilometres through Turkey.

To date, 2.5 million barrels have been pumped into the pipeline, which requires 10 million barrels before it is filled.

BP Azerbaijan boss David Woodward acknowledges that a lot of building work remains to be carried out in Turkey, but said that BP still aims to have Ceyhan's first tanker leave with Azeri crude before the end of the year.

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