Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Azerbaijan

Presidents Launch Georgian BTC-Pipeline Section

12 October 2005 -- The presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey today inaugurated the Georgian section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline.

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October 12, 2005

The ceremony was attended by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.

The BTC pipeline is aimed at exporting oil from the Caspian Sea oil fields, believed to hold the world's third-largest oil reserves, to the West. Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan are all Caspian Sea littoral states with claims to the region's resources.

The U.S.-backed, $4 billion pipeline is scheduled to start pumping Caspian oil from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey for export to western countries by the end of this year.

(AP/ITAR-TASS/Caucasus Press)

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