BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Transportation of oil from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline was interrupted Tuesday because of a gas leak at oil fields in the Caspian Sea, officials said.
Officials with BP, the majority shareholder in the 1,099-mile pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey, said a Sept. 17 gas leak that disrupted production at the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field in the Caspian Sea closed BTC for about 10 hours, the oil and gas newspaper Upstream reported.
Production from the ACG field dropped by nearly 500,000 barrels per day because of the leak. BP officials said there was no date available for when oil production would return to normal.
Officials said, however, exports scheduled for October from BTC would not be affected by the production cuts.
The BTC pipeline was closed in early August because of a fire at a pumping station in eastern Turkey. It carries roughly 1 percent of the world's oil reserves.
