BP’s Baku-Ceyhan pipeline has halted shipments of crude oil due to technical problems, a company spokeswoman told Reuters.
“Shipments of oil from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli fields have stopped for several days. Output will fall to 160,000 barrels per day,” Tamam Bayatly, spokeswoman for BP’s Azeri operations, said.
Bayatly said a Turkish pumping station near the border with Georgia appeared to be the cause of the problem that led to the pipeline stoppage.
The pipeline, which normally takes 700,000 bpd of Azeri oil to Turkey via Georgia, opened in June last year. It has a capacity of 1 million barrels per day.
BP has said it will pump considerably more oil through the pipeline next year – up to 1.2 million bpd – after its April decision to stop sending oil through the Baku-Novorossiyisk pipeline that takes Azeri oil to Russia.
(Reuters)