Azerbaijan-Turkey pipeline to cost about $ 1 bn

A 900 km pipeline to ship natural gas from Azerbaijan's offshore gas fields to market in Turkey is likely to cost about $ 1 bn to build, a top Azerbaijani gas executive said. If built, the pipeline would transport 7.2 bn cm of gas a year, primarily from the Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian Sea.
The field, operated by BP and Norway's Statoil who jointly own 51 %, is thought to hold as much as 400 bn cm of gas. The Azerbaijani portion of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline is likely to cost about $ 500 mm, or half the total, said Aztransgaz General Director Nazim Samedzade.

BP and Turkish state-owned pipeline company Botas have already said they would back construction of the proposed pipeline. Gas deliveries would come under the aegis of a gas import accord signed by Turkey and Azerbaijan earlier this year.