07-06-06 The average Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline tariff will be $ 3-4 per barrel, Ilham Nassirov, Executive Director of AZBTC Co, a firm representing Azerbaijan in this project, said.
"The BTC pipeline tariffs for the project participants will be formed in accordance with the volumes of oil pumped by each company, but in average they will be from $ 3 to $ 4 per barrel during the whole BTC operations period. For the third parties they will be determined at separate talks and will depend on the quality of their oil," Mr Nassirov said.

The President of BP-Azerbaijan (BTC project operator) in his turn observed that the average tariff during the whole BTC operations period should not be less than $ 3 per barrel.
"There will be one size of the tariff for the pipeline owners and another for shippers," Mr Woodward said. At the earliest phase of the project implementation the BTC pipeline tariffs were assessed by the SOCAR to be at the level of $ 2.58 per barrel.

The total expenditures for the oil pipeline construction will amount to $ 4 bn.
"Apart from the expenditures for the load of 10 mm barrels and the credit servicing, the expenditures for the BTC pipeline construction amounted to $ 3.9 bn, including 25 % borne by Azerbaijan," the Executive Director of AZBTC Co said.

The length of BTC pipeline is 1,767 km, of which 443 km are in Azerbaijan, in Georgia -- 248 km, in Turkey -- 1,076 km. The pipeline capacity is 50 mm tons of oil per annum.

The participants of BTC project are the following: BP (30.1 %); SOCAR (25.00 %); Unocal (8.90 %); Statoil (8.71 %); TPAO (6.53 %); ENI (5.00 %); Itochu (3.40 %); ConocoPhillips (2.50 %); Inpex (2.50 %), Total (5.00 %), and Amerada Hess (2.36 %).
The total cost of the project initially was $ 3.6 bn, including the interest on credit, of which $ 1 bn was invested by the project shareholders, and $ 2.6 consisted of the attracted loans. In total $ 2.95 bn were assessed to be required for the construction part of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project. The project expenditures are also formed by costs for the load of 10 mm barrels ($ 250 mm,) as well as costs of the talks on financing and debt payments.

The loans for the pipe construction have been allocated by the European Bank of reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Financial Corporation (IFC) -- $ 250 mm, 15 commercial banks -- $ 936 mm, and the Japan Bank for International Co-operation -- $ 480 mm, as well as four companies participating in the project -- BP, Statoil, ConocoPhillips, and Total -- $ 923 mm.
Among the bank credits $ 250 mm are allocated under guarantees of the EBRD and the IFC and $ 686 mm -- under guarantees of export and insurance agencies. The loans have been granted for 10-12 years at an average rate Libor +3.5 % per annum.