South Caucasus Pipeline

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South Caucasus Pipeline (also: Baku-Tblisi-Erzurum Pipeline, PTE pipeline or Shah-Deniz Pipeline) is a natural gas pipeline to transport natural gas from the Shah Deniz gas field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea to Turkey.

Contents

[edit] History

On 21 May 2006, the commissioning gas was pumped to the pipeline from the Sangachal Terminal.[1] First deliveries of gas started around 15 December 2006.[2]

[edit] Description of the pipeline

The 42 inches (1,070 mm) diameter gas pipeline runs in the same corridor as the BTC Pipeline. It is 692 kilometres (430 mi) long, of which 442 kilometres (275 mi) is laid in Azerbaijan and 248 kilometres (154 mi) in Georgia.[1] The initial capacity of the pipeline is 8.8 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year, and after 2012 its capacity could be expanded to 20 bcm per year.]].[3] The pipeline has a potential of being connected to Turkmen and Kazakh producers through the planned Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline.

[edit] Economic impact

The first aim of pipeline is to supply Turkey and Georgia. As a transit country, Georgia has rights to take 5 % of the annual gas flow through the pipeline in lieu of tariff and can purchase a further 0.5 billion cubic metres of gas a year at a discounted price. In longer perspective South Caucasus Pipeline will supply Europe with Caspian natural gas through the planned Nabucco, Turkey-Greece and Greece-Italy pipelines.

[edit] Project company

The pipeline is commissioned by a consortium led by BP and Statoil. The shareholders of the consortium are:

The technical operator of pipeline is BP and commercial operator is Statoil.

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ a b "SCP Commissioning Commences. Press Release", BP, 2006-06-01. Retrieved on 2008-04-06. 
  2. ^ "Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz Field On Stream", OilVoice, 2006-12-15. Retrieved on 2006-12-18. 
  3. ^ "Shah Deniz taps primed", Upstream Online, 2006-09-14. Retrieved on 2008-04-06. 

[edit] References

  • International Energy Agency: Caspian oil and gas: The supply potential of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. OECD, Paris 1998, ISBN 92-64-16095-7
  • Charles van der Leeuw: Oil and gas in the Caucasus & Caspian: A history. Curzon, Richmond, Surrey 2000, ISBN 0-7007-1123-6
  • John Roberts: Caspian oil and gas: How far have we come and where are we going? In: Oil, transition and security in Central Asia. RoutledgeCurzon, London [u.a.] 2003, ISBN 0-415-31090-3

[edit] External links