Turkish energy minister: BTC pipeline is guarantor of the world’s energy security

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Significant role of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline in energy security of countries in the region and the whole world was especially stressed at the conference “Turkey: Caspian region – Black Sea, oil and natural gas — 2006” held in Ankara on the initiative of the Turkish Power Engineering and Natural Resources.

As Azerbaijani AT news agency reports, talking at the conference, Turkish Power Engineering and Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Guler noted that in 2006 the both immense projects will be commissioned, and in the near future a pipeline will be put into operation that will transmit Kazakhstani oil into the BTC. According to him, Turkey will play role of a bridge between the Caspian Region, Central Asia, Middle East and Europe in transporting hydrocarbon fuel, and Ceyhan is to become the largest terminal in the Mediterranean coast.

It was also noted that reducing the amount of oil transit to the Black Sea through the Bosporus and Dardanelles. Saying that in 2005 through this way 150 million tons of crude oil was transported, the minister stressed that if there are no underwater and surface pipelines, in 2009 the figure could reach 200 million tons.