Turkey sends first oil from Caspian pipeline to Western markets

ANKARA, Turkey -- Authorities at a Turkish Mediterranean oil port Friday loaded the first Caspian oil shipment from a new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline onto a tanker for Western markets.

The shipment from Ceyhan marks a crucial step in completing a project designed to create alternative oil routes to ease the West's dependence on Middle East crude.

Although it included oil from the Caspian pipeline, the bulk of the shipment was already stored at Ceyhan, said oil officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The 600,000 barrels of Caspian crude on The British Hawtharne was destined for the northwestern Italian port of Savona, officials said.

The recently completed $4 billion, 1,100-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline allows the West to tap oil from the Caspian Sea fields, estimated to hold the world's third-largest reserves, bypassing Russia and Iran.

The Caspian's reserves are shared by Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

Gokmen Cologlu, deputy director of the project, said there were no problems in loading and the ship could sail for Italy possibly on Sunday, the semiofficial Anatolia news agency reported.

Ceyhan is the end point of a pipeline running from neighboring Iraq, and Turkey built a new terminal and storage tanks to ship Azeri oil. The new oil terminal is expected to begin pumping 1 million barrels of crude per day when fully operational.

Friday's shipment is largely considered a technical exercise. A formal launching ceremony to be attended by the presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey is scheduled for July 13.

The project, conceived in the mid-1990s and started in 2002, is intended to tie the oil-rich newly independent former Soviet nations to the West and reduce the influence of Russia and Iran. U.S. officials insisted the pipeline be built through Turkey, bypassing the Middle East and Russia.

Hopes that Caspian oil could be an alternative source to Middle Eastern oil have so far proven unrealistic, however. Analysts say the Middle East still provides half of global oil supplies.

Turkey hopes to earn some $300 million in transit fee from the new Caspian oil pipeline, which would also increase the importance of Ceyhan as an international oil hub, Anatolia said.