BTC exports 26.4m tons of crude oil

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline that takes Azerbaijani oil to Europe via Turkey exported about 26.4 million tons of crude oil in 2021, the pipeline’s operator BP Azerbaijan has said in its recent report.

The oil was exported from Turkey’s Ceyhan terminal loaded on 280 tankers.

Last year, over $119 million was spent in operating expenditure and over $34 million in capital expenditure on the BTC project.

Overall, BTC exported over 502 million tons of crude oil loaded on 4,939 tankers to the world markets since the pipeline became operational in June 2006 till the end of 2021.

On 12 December 2021, BTC reached a significant milestone by achieving 500 million tonnes of oil export in total from the Sangachal terminal near Baku across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to Ceyhan.

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, including volumes from Turkmenistan, Russia, and Kazakhstan.

Furthermore, in 2021, the Sangachal terminal exported about 231172 million barrels of oil and condensate to world markets. This includes about 200 million barrels through BTC and around 31 million barrels through the Western Route Export Pipeline.

About 61 million cubic meters of Shah Deniz gas were exported from the terminal daily in 2021.

It was noted that the daily capacity of the terminal’s processing systems is currently 1.2 million barrels of crude oil and condensate, and around 100 million cubic meters of gas, including 81 million cubic meters for Shah Deniz gas.

Gas is exported via the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP), the SCP expansion system and via Azerbaijan’s pipelines connecting the terminal’s gas processing facilities with Azerigas’s national grid system.

Likewise, the daily average throughput of the South Caucasus Pipeline was 48.5 million cubic meters of gas during the last year. The South Caucasus Pipeline spent around $54 million in operating expenditure and around $12 million in capital expenditure.

On 1 August 2021, the transition of the technical operatorship of the South Caucasus Pipeline Company (SCPC) from BP Exploration (Shah Deniz) Limited to SOCAR Midstream Operations LLC was finalized. The transition process which started in March 2020 was successfully completed in July 2021.  The transfer of the technical operatorship was carried out in fulfilment of the obligations undertaken in the revised SCPC Pipeline Owners’ Agreement, signed in December 2013 as part of the Final Investment Decision on the Shah Deniz Stage 2 and South Caucasus Pipeline Expansion (SCPX) projects.

The South Caucasus Pipeline was built to export Shah Deniz gas from Azerbaijan to Georgia and Turkey. The pipeline starts from the Sangachal terminal near Baku. It follows the route of the BTC crude oil pipeline through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey, where it is linked to the Turkish gas distribution system. The pipeline has been operational since late 2006 transporting gas to Azerbaijan and Georgia and starting from July 2007 to Turkey from Shah Deniz Stage 1.

The BTC pipeline is a transport line for Azerbaijani oil from the Caspian Sea to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey, and then to European markets via the Mediterranean Sea. The official opening ceremony of the BTC oil pipeline took place in Turkey 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; 1076 km to Turkey. 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.

The Sangachal terminal is an oil and gas terminal that receives, processes, stores, and exports crude oil and gas produced from all currently operated BP assets in the Caspian basin and has room for expansion. The terminal includes oil and gas processing facilities, the first pump station for the BTC oil pipeline, and South Caucasus gas pipeline (SCP) compressor, and other facilities.