Loading of crude oil from Azerbaijan at the Mediterranean terminal of Ceyhan has resumed after catastrophic earthquakes struck southeastern Türkiye, with the first tanker setting sail on Monday.
The Ceyhan terminal was damaged in the devastating quakes that razed thousands of buildings across 10 southeastern provinces in Türkiye and severely hit northwestern Syria.
Tanker loadings restarted as of Sunday afternoon said BP’s Baku office's spokesperson Tamam Bayatlı. The company declared force majeure on loadings of Azeri crude from Ceyhan on Feb. 8.
In the first since quakes hit the region on Feb. 6, the Nordlotus sailed from the oil export hub loaded with Azeri crude oil on Monday, ship-tracking data showed and a trading source said.
The Alfa Baltica was also shown at a jetty at the BOTAŞ Ceyhan oil terminal on Monday. The tanker was also loading Azeri crude, a trade source said.
The terminal is some 155 kilometers (96 miles) from the area of the quake’s epicenter. It is the storage and loading point for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which carries oil from Azerbaijan and the Kirkuk pipeline from Iraq.
Azerbaijan uses Ceyhan as its main crude export hub, with a flow of about 650,000 barrels per day (bpd).
The Iraqi crude oil pipeline to Ceyhan resumed flows late on Feb. 7, when Iraqi crude was loaded for the first time since the earthquakes.
