Peter Brookman, EA Technology, UK,
presents a journey across Turkey to
inspect the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline and keep the oil flowing into Europe.
Figure 1.
Ceyhan marine terminal. ©Peter Brookman.
T
he Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline is the second
longest pipeline in the former Soviet Union. It covers a
vast, geographically diverse stretch of land, connecting
Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku on the Caspian seafront,
through Georgia’s capital Tbilisi to Ceyhan, a port on the south-
eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey.
Completed in 2005, the pipeline is owned by joint venture
company the BTC Pipeline Company (BTC Co.). Responsible for
both its construction and operations, BTC Co. recently appointed
power-engineering specialist EA Technology to undertake a
thorough technical assessment of the Turkish stretch of the
pipeline.
A team of six, highly skilled engineers were sent out to
assess the earthing and lightning protection of all of the pipeline
assets. The Turkish section of the pipeline, operated by BOTAS
International Limited (BIL), a subcontractor to BTC Co.’s Turkish
branch, runs from the Georgian border of Turkey to Ceyhan
Marine Terminal (CMT), covering approximately 1074 km.
Unique challenges
Despite being experts in the field, this would be the largest
overseas technical assessment project EA Technology had ever
undertaken. Chosen because of its proven capabilities to take on
large scale petro-chem diagnostic projects across the world, as
well as its inherent impartiality and commercial independence,
the BTC project presented the EA Technology team with some
truly unique challenges.
Peter Brookman, Technical Lead on the project and EA
Technology’s HV earthing expert, said: “What we were essentially
tasked with was a benchmark condition assessment of the pump
27
