The Oil Drum

Here's the explanation, if you're interested. Several months ago, the BTC company bought one cargo of Azeri Light from AIOC (operator of the fields in the Caspian). The cargo was loaded at Supsa in Georgia (Black Sea terminal of the Azerbaijan/Georgia Western Export Pipeline), shipped through the Bosphorus and discharged at Ceyhan. It was used to fill the storage tanks at the BTC export terminal and to commission things like the metering system, off-spec tankage, open and closed drains, dewatering systems, ESD/C&I and so on, and to provide some ullage for normal operations.

Now the pipeline proper is tested, full of oil, dewatered and flowing, and there will soon be enough oil in storage at Ceyhan for an export cargo. This cargo will inevitably include some of the initial charge of oil that was used to commission the terminal facilities.

This was done to shave a few days or weeks off the commissioning schedule - otherwise they would just be starting in on commissioning Ceyhan round about now. Perfectly standard good engineering practice, not a deep dark dirty secret (in fact I think there was a press release at the time), nothing to see here, move along.

In reply to OilManBob - why build refineries in Central Asia when the local product market is already well supplied? The economic growth, and demand growth, is in the EU and Turkey. The Azeri Light stream will mostly be sold into refineries in the Mediterranean basin. It's similar in quality to Brent, and it will command a slight effective premium because it doesn't have to be shipped all the way from Sullom Voe. I guess it will also displace some of what is coming north through Suez.

The Israelis see Ceyhan as a great way to diversify their energy supply from a country they enjoy good relations with. There's even talk of a spur pipeline, though personally I don't see how that could be economic - they can just use tankers like everyone else.

Sure, BTC was expensive, but it's finished now. The partner companies committed to it when oil was about $30 a barrel. I doubt if they're complaining :)