Turkey will launch an oil pipeline between its Black Sea and Mediterranean coasts next Tuesday with a groundbreaking ceremony at the Ceyhan oil terminal, energy officials said yesterday.
At an estimated cost of $1.5 billion, the 550-kilometer-long pipeline, to be completed in 2009, will carry Kazakh and Azeri oil from the Black Sea port of Samsun to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean, bypassing the congested Turkish straits.
Indian Oil Corporation has joined the project, taking a 12.5 percent stake in the venture set up by Calik Energy and Italy’s Eni. The officials said an Italian minister would attend the ceremony, postponed from last month after Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi was unable to attend.
(Reuters, 19/04/2007)