BP-Amoco is willing to bring Azerbaijan's newly explored oil and natural gas reserves to Turkey by 2002-2003, the Anatolian news agency reported.
David Fitzsimmons, BP-Amoco vice-president responsible for natural gas and energy, underlined at a speech in Ankara Wednesday at the Third Turkish Energy Conference, that the Baku-Tibilisi-Ceyhan [Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey respectively] oil pipeline, which will transport Caspian oil to western markets, will be vital for the next 25 years.
He added that the pipeline's basic engineering work was almost completed.
Fitzsimmons said that it was important for BP to contribute to Turkey's sustainable and rapid economic development, adding that BP had been doing business in Turkey for 90 years.
He added that new resources were necessary to meet Turkey's increasing natural gas demand and that the Shahdeniz gas reserves are important for that reason. He said that Shahdeniz reserves were the largest discovered in the world since 1978.
"Turkey is one of the most attractive markets for natural gas. BP wants to establish an east-west corridor in natural gas and bring natural gas to Turkey in the shortest time possible. It is very important to make future investment in this sector," said Fitzsimmons.
He added that $2 billion was needed to transport natural gas to Turkey, saying that this was not a big sum if other natural gas projects for Turkey were taken into consideration. "Turkey is a lucky country as regards financing and cost," he concluded.
However, Fitzsimmons said that legal and commercial agreements had to be signed between Turkey and Azerbaijan if the project is materialized. – (Albawaba-MEBG)
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
