Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline: Oil or Politics

The ceremony of commissioning the Azerbaijani section of the new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline again drew the attention of analysts to the project.

Moscow did not support the idea of the pipeline but did not interfere with it either, though it had said that it would not provide oil to it. Sergei Grigoryev, vice-president of Transneft, had said that each state had an inalienable right to build what it needs. I would add, even if the project were unprofitable. Baku cannot supply as much oil as the new, highly expensive pipe from the Caspian to the Mediterranean can pump. Nobody is talking any more about the allegedly giant underwater oilfields on Azerbaijan’s shelf. The truth is that the bulk of oil is concentrated on the eastern, Kazakh, coast of the sea.

RIAN