BP to Start Work on Historic Caspian Link Reuters
BAKU, Azerbaijan -- Britain's BP starts work Wednesday on a $2.9 billion oil pipeline from the land-locked Caspian Sea to Turkey that will put crude from the region in reach of world markets. The 1,700-kilometer link from Azerbaijan, long dismissed as a costly dream, became feasible after the oil major found more oil in the Caspian. Russia abandoned its original hostility to the U.S.-backed project, which bypasses Russian territory, after the Sept. 11 attacks. "This is of course an amazing development bearing in mind that several years ago people believed the project would never happen," said Brunswick UBS Warburg senior oil analyst Paul Collison. It is the first major private pipeline from the Caspian to bypass Russia and has strengthened the United States' role in one of the world's fastest growing oil regions. When completed, it will run from the Azeri capital of Baku through Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. "Baku-Ceyhan is our direct competitor, but there is nothing to be afraid of," said Russia's chief Caspian negotiator Viktor Kalyuzhny. "I think it is even positive, because it can shake up Transneft's officials, who became too used to be monopolists," he said, referring to the Russian pipeline monopoly. The BP-led Baku-Ceyhan project includes Norway's Statoil, U.S. Unocal, Turkish TPAO, Japan's Itochu, Italy's ENI, French TotalFinaElf, Azeri SOCAR and Saudi Arabia Delta Hess. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2002/09/17/047.html [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Sell a Home with Ease! http://us.click.yahoo.com/SrPZMC/kTmEAA/MVfIAA/Uy.rlB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
