Oil pumping on BTJ pipeline temporarily halted

Oil pumping on the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeykhan (BTJ) pipeline has been
temporarily halted due to damage on the pipeline, Reuters reports,
citing the Turkish Ministry of Energy and BP.

The problem occurred on Monday night. Operator of the pipeline BP said
that they started repairing the pipeline and will finish work on
Wednesday night.

The incident did not affect the oil extraction and export, a BP
official in Turkey, Murat Lekompte, said.

In October, the BTJ was reported to have increased oil transport by
2.5% in January-September, reaching 27.964 million tons.

The pipeline has already pumped 134.501 million tons of Azerbaijani
oil since its launch in June 2006 until October 1, 2010. The pipeline
exports oil produced on Azeri-Chyrag-Guneshli block in the Caspian, as
well as the condensates from Shakh-Deniz. BTJ transports 1.2 barrels
of oil daily.