Oil loading at Ceyhan port for the BTC pipeline may start within days
A general view of oil tanks at Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, which is run by state-owned Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ), some 70 km (43.5 miles) from Adana Feb. 19, 2014. (Reuters File Photo)


The Ceyhan port in Türkiye's Adana province may resume loading oil from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline in a few days using "manual" procedures, a Turkish official and a source said Saturday.

The terminal, on Türkiye's Mediterranean coast, was damaged in the devastating earthquakes that hit Türkiye and Syria on Monday.

It is the storage and loading point for the BTC pipeline, which carries oil from Azerbaijan and the Kirkuk pipeline from Iraq.

The Kirkuk pipeline resumed flows on Tuesday evening, and a tanker docked in Ceyhan to load that day. A third tanker loaded on Friday.

Before the halt, the KRG had been pumping about 400,000 bpd, and Iraq's federal government was pumping 75,000 bpd through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline.

According to the latest official figures, flows halted on Monday after the earthquakes, leaving at least 21,000 dead and over 63,794 injured.

However, BP Azerbaijan declared force majeure on loadings of Azerbaijani crude from Ceyhan on Wednesday.

The Turkish official said the control room for BTC pipeline loadings was damaged, but added loadings were expected to resume "manually" while the control room is repaired.

Loadings could begin within a day or two days; a shipping source quoted information from the terminal.

An official and an industry source had said on Friday that damage assessment and repairs were underway at Ceyhan and that exports from the BTC pipeline could resume from Sunday unless problems were found.