The visit

Visiting Baku on 24 December, LUKoil President Vagit Alekperov discussed with the leadership of Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR the possibility of LUKoil participation in the project to build the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan export pipeline for Caspian oil, Turan and Interfax reported. Alekperov told journalists after those discussions that LUKoil will decide within the next three months whether to join the sponsor group that will finance the pipeline, adding that he is thinking in terms of a 7.5 percent stake. At present SOCAR has a 50 percent stake in the project, British Petroleum 25.41 percent, Unocal 7.65 percent, Norway's Statoil 6.37 percent, Turkey's TPAO 5.02 percent, Japan's Itochu Oil 2.92 percent, Devon Energy 0.6 percent, and the U.S.-Saudi joint venture Delta Hess 2.03 percent.