Ceyhan terminal resumes loading Azerbaijani oil into tankers suspended after earthquake

BAKU. Feb 13 (Interfax) - Turkey's Ceyhan terminal on February 12 resumed loading into tankers Azerbaijani oil from the BTC pipeline which had been suspended following the earthquake in the south of Turkey on February 6, BP told Interfax.

"The loading of Azerbaijani oil into tankers at the Ceyhan terminal resumed Sunday afternoon. Operations for loading oil into tankers resumed after assessing potential damage, carrying out necessary repairs and verifying that the berthing facilities were completely free of damage," the company said.

After the earthquake in southern Turkey, export of Azerbaijani oil via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and its loading to the Ceyhan terminal continued, but operations to transship the oil into tankers were suspended. Shippers of oil transported via the BTC were aware of the force-majeure circumstances, it was reported.

Oil from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli block of fields and condensate from the Shah-Deniz field, as well as oil from SOCAR, the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan and oil from a number of other Caspian region countries are pumped through the BTC oil pipeline.

The length of the BTC is 1,768 km; its throughput capacity exceeds 50 million tonnes of oil per year.

The shareholders of BTC Co., the oil pipeline operator, are: BP - 30.1%; SOCAR - 25%; MOL - 8.9%; Equinor - 8.71%; TPAO - 6.53%; Eni - 5%; Itochu - 3.4%; ExxonMobil - 2.5%; Inpex - 2.5%), TotalEnergies - 5% and ONGCVidesh - 2.36%.