Oil flow through Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline down nearly 9% at 233 million barrels

Ankara, January 16 - Neftegaz.RU. According to Daily Sabah, the Baku-Tbilsii-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline – which carries Azerbaijani oil from the Caspian Sea, in addition to volumes from other regional countries including Russia and Kazakhstan – delivered 233.17 million barrels of crude oil to the global markets last year. In 2018, the pipeline carrier 255.7 million barrels of oil.

According to Turkey's Petroleum Pipeline Corporation BOTAŞ, the 1,776-km-long BTC pipeline – a historic international energy project – has delivered over 3.3 billion barrels of oil since its inauguration on July 13, 2006. The annual oil transit amount in 2007, one year after the pipeline's inauguration, was around 210 million barrels.

The highest annual oil delivery through the pipeline was made in 2010 at 286.2 million barrels, and the lowest delivery occurred during the startup year in 2006 with 57.8 million barrels. In 2019, the highest volume of oil delivered through the pipeline was recorded during the month of May with 22.1 million barrels and the lowest volume was recorded in the month of December with 17.5 million barrels.

The BTC pipeline delivers Azeri light crude loaded in Baku's Heydar Aliyev marine terminal – mainly from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field – through Georgia to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan for further export via tankers. The 7 oil tanks in the Ceyhan region each have a storage capacity of 1 million barrels, in addition to 51 valve stations, 4 pump stations and two rig stations.