BTC was closed for two weeks at the time of last year’s war because of an unrelated explosion in Turkey, and it was not damaged in the conflict. But bombs did fall within 15m of the Baku-Supsa pipeline, which BP was then in the process of reopening, two years after it had been closed for maintenance.
Russian troops seized the main East-West highway, and explosions hit the key railway also used to export Azeri oil.
But the immediate impact of the war “was more like a hiccup in terms of export disruptions — oil and gas exports were interrupted/redirected only briefly, and the long-term impact on transportation has been less than it could have been,” Hardin said in an e-mailed response to questions. Azerbaijan re-routed some oil through Russia.
Then last month, it agreed to sell Russia a modest 500 million cubic meters of gas beginning next year. Russian state-run gas giant Gazprom said it had secured priority in buying gas from the second phase of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz deposit — Europe’s main hope for supplying Nabucco.
Analysts say Azerbaijan, faced with an unstable Georgia and trying to balance political interests between East and West, wants to diversify export options.
Underscoring the interplay between energy interests and territorial disputes in the Caucasus, Baku is also looking for Moscow’s backing in its dispute with Russian ally Armenia over the Armenian-backed rebel region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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