BP: Issue regarding crude oil at Ceyhan terminal already resolved

All tanks at the Ceyhan terminal now contain on-specification crude oil, said Tamam Bayatly, Head of the Press Service of BP-Azerbaijan, in response to APA-Economics' inquiry.

According to her, the operations of loading crude oil onto tankers at the terminal are back to normal.

“The issue related to crude oil at the Ceyhan terminal has already been resolved,” Tamam Bayatly emphasized.

Recall that in July of this year, BTC Co. (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Company) received information about a potential quality issue related to organic chlorides in some shipments of crude oil transported through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. BTC Co. immediately carried out comprehensive quality assessments of crude oil at all facilities along the pipeline.

The results of those assessments showed that the quality of crude oil at all facilities along the pipeline up to the Ceyhan terminal meets the accepted specifications. Additionally, quality assessments of the crude oil inside the tanks at the Ceyhan terminal were also conducted. As a result, the presence of organic chlorides in the crude oil in some tanks was identified. Appropriate measures were immediately taken, and those tanks were isolated. BTC Co. has carried out relevant work to manage and eliminate the crude oil in the tanks at the Ceyhan terminal that was assessed as not meeting the accepted specifications (due to the presence of organic chlorides- ed.).

Currently, the BTC pipeline primarily transports oil produced from Azerbaijan’s “Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli” block and Shah Deniz condensate. Additionally, other regional Caspian crude oil and condensate volumes (from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and other volumes produced by SOCAR in Azerbaijan) are also transported via BTC.

The shareholders of BTC Co. are: BP (30.1%), SOCAR (32.97%), MOL (8.90%), TPAO (6.53%), Eni (5%), TotalEnergies (5%), ITOCHU (3.4%), ONGC Videsh (3.1%), ExxonMobil (2.5%), and INPEX (2.5%).