BBC Monitoring Service, Turan News Agency,
16, January 2008

16 January: On 16 January, the State Oil Fund of the Azerbaijani Republic received first dividends to the tune of 16.5m dollars which were the country's share from the operation of the main [oil] export pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC).

The fund assesses the payment of the dividends one year after the launch of the project as the BTC's success. "This once again confirms the fact that the pipeline is the most optimal way of delivering Azerbaijani hydrocarbons to the world market," says a statement issued by the fund.

The dividends from the BTC were envisaged in the Oil Fund's budget for 2008.

BTC stakeholders are the companies AzBTC, Hess, BP, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Inpex, Itochu, Statoil, Total, TPAO and Unocal.

[BBCM note: The BTC was officially inaugurated in the Turkish port of Ceyhan on 13 July 2006. The US-backed pipeline runs from Baku through Georgia to Turkey's Ceyhan and delivers Azerbaijani oil to Western markets.]