Construction of the second 30 inch oil pipe connecting the oil terminals of Azertrans Ltd. and BP-Azerbaijan companies in Sangachal (42 kilometers South from Baku) was completed in January 2006.

Azerbaijan is ready to transit Kazakh oil into the world markets through the Baku-Tbilisi-Geyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, beginning in Sangachal and terminating at the Caspian Sea.
Today nobody can say with certainty when the BTC pipeline will begin. Natig Aliyev stated that it will probably begin no earlier than this April. Natig Aliyev is Minister of Industry and Energy of Azerbaijan and head of the principal committee of BTC Company, responsible for the building and exploitation of the BTC pipeline. According to Aliyev, the problem is a serious lag in the schedule. There is already a 4-5 week lag in the Turkish territory of the pipeline. The State Company BOTAS responsible for building the Turkish site of BTC, despite all its efforts is not able to begin the oil flow from the 3rd and 4th pump stations by this spring.

"In order to find the way out of this situation," Aliyev remarked, "we have decided to meet once again in Turkey and in written form confirm the new lease schedule in the Turkish territory of BTC".

When construction of the pipeline began in April 2004, it was believed that BTC would be ready by the end of December 2004. Then the deadline was pushed to May 2005. The date was postponed again to December 15 because the Georgian government was concerned about ecological danger in the Borjomi reserve. Also a careless attitude to duties by BOTAS service companies in the Turkish territory will prevent completion of the BTC before March 5, 2006. Now Natig Aliyev, with reference to an independent auditor company, has announced that BTC will be ready by April. Because the uncertainty due to problems that came up during the building of the pipeline, the BP project operator, in his official documents, names Spring 2006 as the deadline of the BTC lease. So, theoretically this may happen May 31 or…

A contradictory position comes from officials in Ankara. Back in November 2005, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Turkey in Azerbaijan, Turan Morah announced to reporters, "there are no problems in the Turkish territory, it's just that BP is not filling the pipeline with the crude product on time." ( Even though everyone knows that there was always enough of crude product there. Because of a lack of existing export powers in June 2005, BP made a decision to begin oil export by train to Batumi-Ed.). Azerbaijan was surprised by the report of Helmi Guler, the Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources. In an exclusive interview for ANS TV on January 7, 2006, Gular announced that "Turkey has no problems receiving Azeri oil." His words indicate the delay of the pipeline work was connected to the problems that appeared earlier in Georgia.

 By edict of President Ilham Aliyev, the budget of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan for 2006 was confirmed.
According to SOCAR's budget project for 2006, the income of the Fund will be 807 842, 6 thousand AZN (it is new Azeri manat, 1 AZN =about $1, 01); and the expenditures-954 287, 7 thousand AZN.
In the structure of transferred income through Azerbaijan, 684 million AZN are expected from oil contracts, from transit payments for oil and gas through the territory of Azerbaijan-13.5 million AZN, as bonuses, 67.5 million AZN, payment per acre-7.434 million AZN. In addition, money from distribution and management of the Fund's assets in 2006 are confirmed in the amount of 35318.6 thousand manat; the rest of the income to the Fund is 90 thousand AZN.
From the total size of the expenditures, by the edict of the president, 110 311 thousand AZN will be directed for improvement of housing and the social welfare of refugees and forced immigrants, for financial obligation of Azerbaijan in the BTC pipeline construction project -38 milion AZN, as transfers into the state budget-585 million AZN, for construction of a water pipe from Oguz-Gabaly zone to Baku-90 million AZN, for the formation of regulation capital of the State Investment Company-90 million AZN, and the expenditures related to Fund management-3 976.7 thousand AZN.