Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline

The traditional geotechnical survey is characterized by discrete information. It means that old survey methods cannot provide comprehensive data on the geological structure, substance composition and properties of the whole pipeline route. This principle is not observed in all the three main gas pipeline cases. The technical documentation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the South-Caucasus Pipeline system, and particularly of the North-South Caucasus Gas Pipeline does not include longitudinal geotechnical profiles of the route and the pipeline corridor in the geotechnical maps. Trial pits and boreholes that are arranged approximately 1,5-... 

Due to the commence of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the Great Silk Route the amount of GHG emissions is expected to increase in the future years. 

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and the South-Caucasus-Pipeline projects will be arranged in a 22-meter wide construction corridor for two parallel pipelines buried in a 2.2-meter deep trench. This alone illustrates the complexity of facilitating pipeline systems in regards of environmental issues and the complicated morphological mountainous relief. 

Therefore, Russia takes as a heavy blow to its vital interests the pipeline projects Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) that are designed to carry alternative Azeri oil and gas in bypass of Russia through the Caucasus and Turkey to the west. Russia, driven by the desire to preserve its gas market share in Europe and hold under control the Caspian gas trans-boundary energy flows appears to be particularly negative to the South Caucasus Pipeline project. Russia offers to use its yet unloaded Blue Stream pipeline under the Black Sea for carrying Azeri gas to Turkey instead of building a new and expensive grid [7]. 

In the beginning of 2000, constmction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main oil export pipeline began. It crossed territories of plague and tularemia natural foci. The pipeline s main stockholder, British Petroleum, contracted the NCDC and the S. Imamaliyev Republic AP Station (Baku, Azerbaijan) to carry out short-term, commercially-funded epi-zoological surveys of areas along the pipeline route. 

Figure 10.1 Villagers in Tetriskaro in Georgia meet in the construction corridor of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and its sister South Caucasus Gas Pipeline, to complain about how the heavy use of dynamite to shatter rock had also shattered their walls Source (Photo Platform)...

Amnesty International (2003) Human Rights on the Line The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline Project, London Amnesty International, www.amnesty.org.uk/ uploads/documents/doc 14538.pdf (accessed 20 June 2012). 

Pipelines Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (oil Caspian to Mediterranean Sea) Druzhba (oil southeast Russia to eastern Europe) China s West to East (gas) Trans-Alaska (oil) Gasoducto del Sur (proposed gas Venezuela to Argentina) Desertec (proposed solar North Africa to Europe)... 

O Lear, S. (2008). Oil Frontiers Local Perceptions of Export Pipelines The Case of Baku -Tbilisi - Ceyhan in Azerbaijan and Georgia. International Political Geography Colloquium Spaces of Politics - Concept and Scales. Reims. 

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