Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor -- Volume 3, Issue 134
by Taleh Ziyadov
(July 12) On Thursday, July 13, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline will be inaugurated at a ceremony in Ceyhan, Turkey. More than 40 high-level officials from some 30 countries plan to attend (Trend.az, July 11). President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia have already arrived in Istanbul, where they will join a dinner reception hosted by Turkish President Necdet Sezer today (July 12).
In the words of Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler, “We understand very well the significance of the BTC project and we have conducted delicate energy diplomacy for its successful implementation.” Furthermore, the BTC pipeline “will not only bring Turkey big economic benefits, but also huge political dividends” (Trend.az, July 12).
“At the moment a strategy to make Ceyhan an energy center is under development,” Guler declared. He also noted that Turkey plans to set up a petroleum stock market at Ceyhan and to further expand the port’s oil transfer capacity.
For a long time the Ceyhan port was used as a major outlet for oil shipments from Iraq via the existing pipeline from Kirkuk. But since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, Iraqi oil shipments have been rather sporadic. The completion of the BTC pipeline has created new opportunities to expand the Ceyhan port. […]
For the complete article, please see http://chechnya.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2371265
