On Monday, Mr. Aliev and Mr. Woodworth met with Georgia's Prime Minister Zurab Zvaniya and the National Security Council's secretary Gela Bezhuashvili.
The participants of the negotiations refused to make any official comments. However, sources in the State Chancellery said that at the meeting the Azerbaijani delegation had raised the issue of resuming the construction of the pipeline's Borjomi section that had been suspended at the request of Georgia's Environment and Natural Resources Protection Ministry due to some violations.
In the environmentalists' opinion, the 16-kilometer section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, running through the Borjomi Gorge, requires a special approach to laying pipes from the main investors. It relates to preserving Borjomi's unique fauna and flora and Borjomi's medicinal springs.
A week ago, Georgia's Environment and Natural Resources Protection Ministry suspended construction of the pipeline's section due to detected environmental disruptions in laying the pipeline.
The main private sponsors of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline construction are the State Oil Company (50%), BP (25.41%), Unocal (7.48%), Statoil (6.37%), TPAO (5.02%), Itochu (2.92%), Ramco (1.55%), Delta Hess (1.25%). The project is estimated at about $3 billion.
The pipeline's total length along the territories of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey is 1,743 kilometers. The pipe's diameter is 1,050 mm. The design flow capacity is 50 billion tons a year. The construction is scheduled to be completed in late 2004.
