Page 11 - MEOG Week 41
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MEOG PIPELINES & TRANSPORT MEOG
Azerbaijan accuses Armenia
of attempted pipeline attack
TURKEY AZERBAIJAN has accused Armenia of on territory within the internationally unrecognised
October 6 firing a cluster rocket at part of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh
BP-operated Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil controlled by ethnic Armenians. The BTC is by
pipeline and the South Caucasus gas pipeline far the main route for Azerbaijan’s oil exports,
(SCP) during the 11th day of the conflict over the carrying about 80% of the crude bound for
Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway enclave. Arme- abroad per day.
nia’s defence ministry immediately rejected the The 25bn cubic metre (bcm) SCP line carries
accusation as “outright lies”. gas to Turkey under two contracts: 6.6 bcm/year
The Prosecutor-General’s Office of Azerbai- via Turkey’s domestic transit grid and 6 bcm/
jan said that the claimed late evening attack on year via the 31 bcm/year TANAP pipeline, all
the pipelines running through the country’s cen- supplied from the BP-operated Shah Deniz gas
tral-western Yevlakh region—which it alleged field. The SCP also supplies gas to Georgia.
saw a rocket that ejects more than 300 cluster In November, the SCP and TANAP lines are
bomblets land 10 metres away from the BTC— scheduled to start carrying up to 10 bcm/year
left the infrastructure unscathed as a result of of additional gas to be fed into the 10 bcm/year
measures taken by the Azerbaijani Army, but Trans Adriatic Pipeline, or TAP, running from
that a civilian was killed. The SCP is a crucial the Turkey-Greece border through Greece,
link in Azerbaijan’s ambition to in November Albania and across the Adriatic to Italy.
start exporting oil to the European Union along The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone lies just
the new Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) of inter- 30-40 km (19-25 miles) from the BTC and SCP
connected pipelines with a terminus in southern pipelines.
Italy. British oil major BP said following the
“Azerbaijan’s reports of Armenian troops’ claimed attacks on the pipelines that it was
attempt to strike the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipe- looking to beef up security at its facilities in
line are outright lies,” Armenian Defence Min- Azerbaijan.
istry press secretary Shushan Stepanian wrote “We are especially worried about yesterday’s
on her Facebook page. “We have repeatedly said reports of a missile attack, which was intercepted
that we do not view oil and gas infrastructure as and destroyed by Azerbaijan’s air defence sys-
our target.” tems in the vicinity of BTC and SCP export pipe-
lines,” BP said in a statement, cited by Reuters.
Main oil export route “While the security of all assets which BP
The 1mn bpd BTC, which is entirely buried, operates on behalf of the Azerbaijan government
transits Caspian Sea Azeri light crude oil via and our partners is provided by the Azerbaijani
Georgia to the Ceyhan port and oil export hub government, we continue to work closely with
on the southeastern Mediterranean coast of the relevant authorities in an effort to take nec-
Turkey, a close ally to Baku that is aggressively essary measures to provide the protection of our
backing Azerbaijan’s attempt to reclaim the personnel, operations and assets.”
Week 41 14•October•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P11
