The South Caucasus Pipeline (also known as Baku–Tbilisi–Erzurum Pipeline, BTE pipeline, or Shah Deniz Pipeline) is a natural gas pipeline from the Shah Deniz gas field in the

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

sector of the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...

to Turkey. It runs parallel to the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan oil pipeline.

History

On 21 May 2006, the commissioning gas was pumped to the pipeline from the Sangachal Terminal. First deliveries through the pipeline commenced on 30 September 2006. Deliveries of gas from Shah Deniz gas field started on 15 December 2006. On 12 August 2008, the pipeline operator BP briefly closed the pipeline for safety reasons because of the South Ossetia conflict, resuming supply two days later.

Description

The diameter gas pipeline runs through the same corridor as the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline until

Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a List of cities in Turkey, city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. It is the site of an ...

, where BTC turns south to the Mediterranean. It is long, of which is in Azerbaijan and in

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. The initial capacity of the pipeline was of gas per year. For the second stage of the Shah Deniz development, the capacity was increased up to by adding additional looping and two new compressor stations, costing $3 billion. As the pipeline has the potential to be connected to Turkmen and Kazakh producers through the planned Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline, Azerbaijan has proposed expanding its capacity up to by building a second line of the pipeline.

Economic impact

The first aim of the pipeline is to supply

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

and

. As a transit country, Georgia has rights to take 5% of the annual gas flow through the pipeline in lieu of a tariff and can purchase a further of gas a year at a discounted price. It supplies Europe with Caspian natural gas through the Southern Gas Corridor pipelines, through the

Trans Adriatic Pipeline The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP; ; ; ) is a natural gas pipeline operational since 2020, running from Greece through Albania and the Adriatic Sea to Italy. It is the final section of the Southern Gas Corridor originating in Azerbaijan. , capaci ...

and Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline.

Project company

The pipeline is owned by the South Caucasus Pipeline Company, a consortium led by BP. As of 2022, the shareholders of the consortium are: * BP ( UK) 29.99% * Lukoil (

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

) 19.99% * TPAO (

) 19.00% * SOCAR (

) 14.35% * NICO (

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

) 10.00% *SGC Upstream (

) 6.67% The technical operator of the pipeline is BP and the commercial operator was Statoil. According to the PSA agreement, the commercial operatorship of the SCP was transferred to SOCAR starting on 1 January 2015.

South Caucasus Pipeline expansion (SCPx)

As a part of the Shah Deniz Full Field Development (FFD), otherwise called the Shahdeniz-2 project, BP will expand the pipeline through capacity extension by putting two additional compressor stations in Georgia and Turkey. This will almost triple the current transportation capacity of the pipeline up to 20 bcm/year. This capacity increase would be able to accommodate an additional 16 bcm gas coming from the SD-2 project. The SCPX follows the line of the earlier BTC and SCP pipelines across Azerbaijan. The project included an archaeological programme and supplemented the discoveries of the earlier two projects.

Footnotes

References

*International Energy Agency: Caspian oil and gas: The supply potential of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. OECD, Paris 1998, *Charles van der Leeuw: Oil and gas in the Caucasus & Caspian: A history. Curzon, Richmond, Surrey 2000, *John Roberts: Caspian oil and gas: How far have we come and where are we going? In: Oil, transition and security in Central Asia. RoutledgeCurzon, London .a.2003,

External links

BP's South Caucasus Pipeline websiteBaku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan / South Caucasus pipelines environmental and community investments website
*Articles about the Southern gas corridor and the energy issue of the South Caucasus in th
Caucasus Analytical Digest No. 3

South Caucasus Gas Pipeline
on Global Energy Monitor {{Coord missing, Azerbaijan Energy infrastructure completed in 2006 Natural gas pipelines in Azerbaijan Natural gas pipelines in Georgia (country) Natural gas pipelines in Turkey BP buildings and structures Equinor Azerbaijan–Turkey relations Caspian Sea Caucasus Azerbaijan–Georgia (country) relations Georgia (country)–Turkey relations