British Petroleum (BP) will transfer the operation of the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline to Azerbaijan and Georgia, while remaining involved as part of contractual obligations, the company says.
The announcement was made by BP’s Executive Vice President for Production and Operations Gordon Birrell in comments to journalists, as reported by Azerbaijani agency Report.
Birrell said the transfer does not amount to BP exiting the asset, stressing that the company is fulfilling obligations agreed under a contract signed around a decade ago.
“This is simply the fulfillment of a contractual obligation undertaken by BP when the pipeline agreement was signed ten years ago,” Birrell said, adding that the move should not be seen as a voluntary decision by the company.
“These are the terms of the contracts. As the previous operator of the oil pipeline, we have contractual obligations. By fulfilling these obligations, we are returning it to its owners. This is not our choice, this is a contractual obligation,” he said.
Birrell also said the transfer process for the Western Route Export Pipeline (WREP), also known as Baku-Supsa, is expected to be completed in June.
“The Baku–Supsa contract is a separate one. Under that agreement, operatorship is transferred in each country to the government, as the owner, and the government then determines the operator,” Birrell said.
The Baku-Supsa pipeline, which runs from Azerbaijan’s Chirag field to the Supsa terminal in Georgia, is 830 km long, with 375 km passing through Georgian territory. It was launched in 1999 and is considered a key export route for Caspian oil to European markets, bypassing Russia.
