Baku News

09 November 2006 - Itar-Tass - British petroleum giant BP has stopped pumping oil from Azerbaijan to Georgia through the Baku-Supsa pipeline due to 'anomalies' exposed in the pipeline. As a result, oil export from Georgia's port of Supsa was paralysed. BP experts in London say the pipeline may be shut down till the end of November. Britain has not disclosed any information about the essence of these 'anomalies.' But specialists does not rule out that they may be similar to the problems at BP's Alaska oil fields that led to an oil spill onto the Prudhoe Bay tundra in March and the shutdown of its North Slope operations in August. U.S. court has already begun hearings over technical violations that caused the spill. It became known that BP while laying the Baku-Supsa pipeline used old pipes from the Soviet era-laid pipeline to reduce construction expenses. The Baku-Supsa pipeline was launched back in 1999. It was designed as a temporary route for the export of Azerbaijani oil while the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline is being under construction.