BP Shuts Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline After Leak in Turkey

By Ayla Jean Yackley and Alaric Nightingale

Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc shut a pipeline carrying Azeri crude oil from Baku to Turkey's Mediterranean coast near Ceyhan after a leak in the Turkish section required repairs.

Production in Azerbaijan and tanker loadings at Ceyhan weren't disrupted by the leak, which occurred yesterday, said Murat Lecompte, a spokesman for BP in Turkey, by telephone.

Flows through the pipeline, which has a capacity of 1 million barrels of oil a day, were due to be started today, he said. The pipeline was shut for three weeks in August after an explosion engulfed a Turkish section of the link in a fire.

``There was an operational problem on the pipeline in Turkey that was a small volume leak that was contained in the pumping station,'' Lecompte said in a telephone interview. ``The leak had no impact on loadings or on production in'' Azerbaijan.

Two tankers loaded yesterday and another one was loaded today, he said.

Oil from the 1,100-mile pipeline, which begins in Baku and crosses Georgia and Turkey, is sold to markets in Europe and the U.S.

Turkey's government said a malfunction was behind the Aug. 5 explosion that shut down the link and rejected a claim of responsibility from Kurdish guerrillas who said they bombed the pipeline.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul at ayackley@bloomberg.net.