BP Operations Continue Amid Georgian Fighting, Pipeline Fire

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4Iv46AUzfNk&refer=home

By Paul Dobson

Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc, Europe's second-largest oil company by market value, said its operations and production continue as they were on Aug. 8, amid fighting between Russian and Georgian troops in the region of South Ossetia.

``The situation has not changed with regard to our operations since Friday,'' spokeswoman Tamam Bayatly said by phone from Baku, Azerbaijan, today. ``Our production continues and our exports continue.''

BP and other companies are pumping crude through the Baku- Supsa pipeline to the Georgian Black Sea coast, after a fire on Aug. 5 in Turkey stopped flows on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which runs about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali. Bayatly declined to comment on operations at Georgian ports.

Russia is scrutinizing ships arriving and departing from Georgia's Black Sea ports, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, told reporters in Moscow. It hasn't imposed a naval blockade, he said. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told reporters in Moscow that he knows of no plans to impose a naval blockade.

Georgia is a key link in a U.S.-backed ``southern energy corridor'' that connects the Caspian Sea region with world markets, bypassing Russia. The U.S. seeks to connect Central Asia natural gas supplies with European markets, skirting Russia in an attempt to weaken the grip of Russia's state-run OAO Gazprom energy company. One planned pipeline route runs from the Georgia-Turkey border.

[BeHereNow]

1. US interests? No. Corporate oil interests. Georgia is but a pawn in the "Great Game."

http://www.socar.az/partners-en.html

BHN

[lovuian]

2. thats to keep the stock price up

they are very screwed right now

[whistle]

3. BP = British Petroleum, so isn't this Britain's problem?