The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has approved a USD 250 million loan for the BTC Caspian oil pipeline, removing the final hurdle in the path of the controversial US-backed link. The EBRD said it had approved financing of USD 125 million for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline with a further USD 125 million to be raised via syndication to commercial banks. Total project costs are estimated at USD 3.6 billion for the pipeline, which will ship one million barrels per day from oilfields in Azerbaijan’s section of the Caspian to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Oil major BP is the project operator. The EBRD also approved a USD 30 million loan to develop Azerbaijan’s Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) Caspian oilfield. The project has forged ahead of rival routes, partly due to support from Washington which favours the link as a means to cut Russian and Iranian influence in the oil-rich Caspian region. The project’s significance increased after Kazakhstan’s section of the Caspian Sea yielded a giant oilfield, making additional crude export routes from the region look more vital than before.
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