BAKU - Some $2bn have been spent on the project of constructing the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Trend news agency reported citing Nagit Aliyev, the President of the Azerbaijani State Oil Company (GNKAR). On the whole, according to him, shareholders in the project will invest about $3bn.

The current pace of construction is about 1 kilometer of a pipeline a day. Aliyev noted that the oil pipeline would be ready for operation by the time oil production started in the central part of the Azeri field.

The GNKAR head also declared that many European companies were interested in the project of laying the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum gas pipeline. Moreover, he mentioned that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development had decided to allocate a $170m credit to GNKAR to finance its share in Phase-1 of the Shakh-Deniz project and $1m on reorganizing the state company.

The construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline is planned to be finished by the end of 2004. The capacity of the 1,760-kilometer pipelineó is 50m tons of oil per year. The cost of the construction is estimated at $2.95bn. Among shareholders in the project are BP (30.1 percent), GNKAR (25 percent), Unocal (8.9 percent), Statoil (8.71 percent), TPAO (6.53 percent), Eni (5 percent), Total (5 percent), Itochu (3.4 percent), Inpex (2.5 percent), ConocoPhillips (2.5 percent) and Amerada.