Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız, Italian Economic Development Minister Claudio Scajola and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Ivanovich Sechin signed the document which spells out the commitments of the three countries regarding the Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline.
The 550-kilometer-long pipeline is expected to cost $1.5 billion and will ship an initial 1 million barrels per day (bpd) between a Black Sea oil terminal in Samsun and the Mediterranean oil terminal in Ceyhan, with plans to raise the capacity to 1.5 million bpd.
The project, which will be carried out by the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline Company (TAPCO), is envisioned to reduce the increasing traffic on the Bosporus, a bottleneck that handles about 3.7 percent of the world's oil supply every day, and to provide an alternative route for Russian and Kazakh oil.
Italian energy company Eni and Turkish company Çalık Energy each hold a 50 percent stake in TAPCO.
In August, Turkey convinced Russia to provide oil for the Samsun-Ceyhan route, just a few days after it signed the Nabucco pipeline deal, which is designed to carry Caspian energy resources to European markets as an alternative to the Russian-controlled pipelines.
The Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline is equally important for Russia; about 25 percent of its oil exports currently go through the Turkish straits. Turkey regarded getting Russian crude for this pipeline as essential to elevate Ceyhan, which is also the terminus for the BP-led Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, to the status of regional oil hub. Representatives from Çalık Holding and Eni were also present at the signing ceremony.
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