Oil Odyssey

THEY SAID IT COULDN'T BE DONE!

Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, that is—the 1765 kilometer (1200 mile) 'Pipeline to Nowhere' that came on line July 13, 2006, thus linking the hydrocarbon riches of Azerbaijan on the western shores of Caspian Sea to the Turkish deep-water port of Ceyhan on the eastern Mediterranean.

While endlessly talked, by the year 1999, there was not only no BTC development on the ground--there was not even a real BTC project map.

Indeed, by the Spring of 2000, the idea of the BTC seemed to be a bust.

Then, out of the blue, there arrived a BTC project proposal so zany that the leadership of Azerbaijan had to take it seriously.

Specifically, the concept was to deliver the first symbolic barrel of Caspian crude down the BTC route via Soviet-era, three-wheeler motorcycles...

There were quite a few folks who regarded the self-styled 'Oil Odyssey' as too strange and dangerous to risk association.

But one man liked what he heard and gave the Oil Odyssey his full support.

That man was the late, great President of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev.

This film, drawn from the combined 'Oil Odyssey' adventures of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, is dedicated to his memory—and to his imagination.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Azerbaijan
• Oil
• Pipeline
• Thomas Goltz