Turkey and the United States have reached a series of
understandings for strategic cooperation on energy.
The two governments met on Dec. 2 in Washington as part of the Economic
Partnership Commission. Ankara and Washington reaffirmed that energy is a
critical component of their strategic cooperation and will work together to
complete regional energy projects.
The projects are the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the centerpiece of
the East-West Corridor. Construction of the pipeline began in April on the
one-million-barrel-per-day, 1,760-kilometer pipeline and is now more than 40
percent complete.
Officials said the first oil from this pipeline will be
delivered to world markets in 2005, Middle East Newsline reported.
Officials said construction is set to begin in 2004 on the parallel
South Caucasus gas pipeline, running from Azerbaijan to Erzurum in central
Turkey. They said the pipeline will bring 6.6 billion cubic meters of Azeri
gas to Turkey as well as markets in Western Europe in 2006.
