Azeri leader, BP manager discuss progress on major oil pipeline

Azartac news agency, Baku
14 Apr 05

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received the president of the
Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC), David Woodward, at
the presidential office on 14 April.

Mr Woodward described as a significant event the extraction in
February of the first oil from the Central Azari platform operating on
the Azari-Ciraq-Gunasli oil fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the
Caspian Sea. The AIOC president added that work on this area has been
successfully progressing.

He expressed his confidence that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan [oil
pipeline] project would be completed in the near future and oil would
be successfully transported through the pipeline.

The Azerbaijani president described the extraction of the first oil
from the Central Azari platform as the beginning of a great oil era in
Azerbaijan and pointed to the fact that work on this area was
progressing successfully.

President Aliyev expressed his confidence that this work would also
continue in the future and the commissioning of the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan global energy project would open up a new era in
cooperation with the AIOC.