Lukoil Will Not Participate in Construction of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline

Lukoil has announced that it has no intention of re-opening negotiations about joining the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

When completed in 2005, the pipeline will ship crude oil from Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea, via Georgia to a marine terminal at the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. The project is strongly backed by Washington, which favours it over alternative export routes through Iran and Russia, but officials in Moscow have dismissed it as a commercial white elephant.

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