ENI to take part in BTC pipeline

Italian oil and gas giant ENI said it has approved plans to become the final member of a consortium to build the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, a spokeswoman confirmed.
"The ENI board examined the project and confirmed that it wants to take part in it," the spokeswoman said. "We intend to stick to our pledge to participate with a 5 % stake in the consortium," she added.

ENI was interested in increasing it's stake in the BTC project to 10 % from the original 5 %. ENI's inclusion will allow the pipeline company to be vested and for initial construction orders to be given.
Azerbaijani president Gaidar Aliyev formally approved a plan for the financing of Baku-based state oil company's SOCAR's part of the project. The pipeline's construction cost is an estimated $ 2.94 bn, which overall is to be financed 30 % from equity and 70 % from debt.

According to the agreement, three other partners in the pipeline consortium, BP, Norway 's Statoil and Unocal, have extended guarantees to the debt portion of SOCAR's participation, some $ 514 mm. In return, they will receive the proceeds of some 2 mm barrels of "profit oil" from SOCAR.
Profit oil is what is left over from a production-sharing agreement once the partners have recovered their costs.