Construction of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline to start today

The ceremony of the beginning of construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhanpipeline will take place at the coastal terminal Sangachal, 42 kilometersto the south from Baku, today. The Presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia,Turkey and the US government's special representative on the Caspian Seaproblems will take part in the ceremony, the Moscow office of BritishPetroleum, which is an operator of the project, toldRosBusinessConsulting.The presidents of the Turkey based Botas company and the GeorgianInternational Oil Company, participants of the project, will also take partin the ceremony.At present, shareholders of the project are British Petroleum (a 38.21percent stake), the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (25 percent), Statoil(9.58 percent), Unocal (8.90 percent), TPAO (7.55 percent), ENI (5percent), Itochu Oil (3.4 percent), Amerada эess (2.36 percent).TotalFinaElf has also obtained the right to get a 5-percent stake in theproject and this deal will soon be finished. .