PKK claims responsibility for pipeline explosion

2008-08-08 16:16:30 [ Big Normal Small ]    　Comment

ANKARA, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- The outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's explosion at one ofthe valves of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which is still ablaze, local Today's Zaman reported Friday.

Local authorities were quoted as saying that the fire is being left to burn because putting it out may result in further damage to the environment.

A senior source at Turkey's state-owned Turkish Pipeline Corporation (Botas) said Thursday that the oil flow will take at least two weeks to restart.

Some officials are even claiming that three months may be required to fix the damage from the explosion and put the oil flow back on track.

The explosion caused a rise in oil prices. Oil recovered from three-month low to rise by more than two U.S. dollars to above 120dollars per barrel on Thursday as supply concerns returned to center stage.

Opened in 2006, the pipeline is the first to carry large volumes of Caspian crude without going through Russia. The 4-billion-U.S.- dollar BTC pipeline pumps the equivalent of more than one percent of the world's oil supply from fields in the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan on the Turkish Mediterranean coast.

The PKK, which usually sets ambush attacks on military and civilian targets in Turkey, previously said it was behind a blast on an Iranian-Turkish natural gas pipeline in March. The attack halted gas exports from Iran to Turkey for five days.

The BTC pipeline covers 1,768 km from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshlioil field in the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, connecting Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and Ceyhan, a port on the southeastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey. It is the second longest oil pipeline in the world.

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