KAZAKH - BAKU-CEYHAN AGREEMENT MAY BE SIGNED SOON
"The next round of talks between working groups from the two countries will take place soon, at which we will regulate some details. Then we will make a report to the government and sign the agreement within an acceptable amount of time," Aliyev said.
He said that the question of ratifying of this intergovernmental agreement by the Kazakh parliament has not yet been resolved and the Azerbaijani government has been informed of this. Aliyev said that the does not believe that the ratification issue will create any problems.
"The main thing is that Kazakhstan should give government guarantees to meet of all obligations in the intergovernmental agreement. Ratification of this document in parliament is a domestic procedure. This procedure, which is still applied in Kazakhstan, satisfies foreign investors, given their activity in oil, gas and infrastructure projects in that country," Aliyev said.
The SOCAR president also ruled out the possibility of the Kazakh side putting forward conditions for joining the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project. "They cannot put forward any conditions, as all conditions for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan were agreed earlier by the governments of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and confirmed, and any other country wishing to join this pipeline should accept these conditions, and I consider that Kazakhstan has accepted them," he said.
He also said that Turkey has significantly increased the pace of work on its section of the pipeline. "Construction of the Turkish section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is progressing two to three times faster than the Azerbaijani section and I think that the Turkish side will meet its obligations to finish the work on time," he said. He said that work is on schedule in all of the countries participating in the project.
Aliyev said that Azerbaijan approached Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania with a proposal to hold a meeting to discuss possible problems with the pipeline during a visit by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to Georgia. "But the head of the Georgian government said that as all the problems with payment of compensation for land use, security and ecology have already been resolved, there is no need for such a meeting."
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project will cost $3.6 billion. The future pipeline will stretch 1,767 kilometers (443 km through Azerbaijan, 248 km through Georgia and 1,076 km through Turkey) and will have a capacity of 50 million tons of oil per annum.
Participants in the BTC project are: British Petroleum (30.1%), SOCAR (25%), Unocal (8.9%), Statoil (8.71%), TPAO (6.53%), ENI (5%), Itochu (3.4%), ConocoPhillips (2.5%), Inpex (2.5%), TotalFinaElf (5%), and Amerada Hess (2.36%).
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