Azerbaijan suffers $50M daily BTC loss

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 14 (UPI) -- The conflict in South Ossetia is costing Azerbaijan at least $50 million per day due to halts in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, analysts said Thursday.

The oil consulting firm Caspian Energy Alliance said Azerbaijan had pumped around 870,000 barrels per day through the pipeline, but interruptions from the conflict between Russia and Georgia resulted in heavy losses, the Azerbaijan Business Center reported.

Turkish energy officials said transportation through its portion of the pipeline could begin as early as Aug. 18, though BP and other owners of BTC have offered no predictions.

A fire Aug. 6 on the pipeline in eastern Turkey consumed 10,000 barrels of crude.

The Alliance report says over 80 percent of crude from fields in Azerbaijan was disrupted due to the South Ossetian conflict, bringing an estimated total loss of $500 million.