Baku News

11 March 2008 - by Upstream OnLine - Azerbaijan will resume oil shipments via the BP-led Baku-Supsa pipeline by the end of June, a Socar official said today. "The Baku-Supsa pipeline will resume operations in the second quarter of 2008," Elshad Nasirov, vice-president of Azerbaijan's state-run player Socar told Reuters. BP, which used the 120,000 barrel-per-day pipeline to transport crude from the giant Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) development in the Caspian Sea, shut the route in October 2006 to repair the 150 kilometre section in Georgian territory. BP has said it would re-open the pipeline as soon as the work is completed, but has not given a precise timetable. The ACG fields' partners include ExxonMobil, Chevron, Devon Energy, Inpex, Itochu and TPAO, as well as Socar. The group is currently producing 770,000 bpd from ACG and expects output to hit its peak of 1 million bpd next year. Oil is currently exported mainly via the Tbilisi-Baku-Ceyhan pipeline.