Oil pipeline to end Middle East 'rule'

AN OIL pipeline intended to sweep away decades of western reliance on the Middle East was opened today. The 1,094-mile line from the landlocked Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean is designed to free the region's huge potential reserves of oil - thought to be the third largest on the planet.

Analysts hope the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project will supply more than 1% of the world's oil needs within months and help develop capacity to 6m barrels a day, 8% of the total required, within five years.

The pipeline, which is 30% owned by BP, will eventually feed from an underground reserve capable of holding 220bn barrels of oil, enough to meet current needs for eight years.

At an opening ceremony today at the Sangachal oil terminal, 25 miles south of the Azerbaijani capital Baku, the first drops of oil were pumped into the £2.2bn pipeline, which will take five months to fill along its whole length. The first shipment of Caspian oil from the Turkish port of Ceyhan is expected before the end of the year.

At the opening US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said: 'This is a contribution towards an increased supply in oil in the world. It adds a new supplier of some consequence. We view this as a significant step forward in the energy security of that region.' Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev added: 'The whole region needs this pipeline.'

Described by BP as the 'world's biggest energy scheme', the pipeline passes the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and eastern Turkey to the port of Ceyhan, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.

Azerbaijan will earn taxes and royalties on the oil, while Georgia and Turkey are to profit from transit fees. It is thought the wider Caspian region has oil reserves bigger than those in both American continents, with the potential to provide the west's oil needs for 50 years. There are also proven reserves of gas at least as large as those controlled by Saudi Arabia.

The project, which took 10 years to design and build, runs through some of the most inhospitable terrain and politically volatile territory in the region. In Azerbaijan, it goes close to a ceasefire line with Armenia where there are still frequent clashes over a territorial dispute. Georgia is fighting separatist conflicts while in Turkey the pipeline skirts the Kurdish heartlands.

In an attempt to prevent sabotage the line has been buried several metres underground for most of its length and will be guarded by local police forces. There have also been tensions with Russia, which feels it has been cut out of the deal.