The long-awaited first shipment of Caspian oil from the new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline got on its way on Sunday from a Turkish port, the Anatolia news agency said.
The loading of the crude oil onto the British Hawthorne, an 85,000-tonne capacity English tanker which had been anchored off Ceyhan, was completed late on Saturday.
The ship then set sail on Sunday for the Italian port of Savona, a senior official with the project, Gokmen Cologlu, told the agency.
After nearly 10 years in construction, the US-backed pipeline will pump Caspian oil via a route that bypasses Iran, Russia and Turkey's already overcrowded Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits.
It is expected to be officially inaugurated in July.
British oil giant BP, the leading company in the BTC project, faces criticism for delays in the completion of the four-billion dollar (3.14-billion euro) pipeline, which will carry crude from the Caspian Sea to western markets.
Officials from Turkey's state-owned oil and gas company BOTAS, a member of the BTC consortium, had previously said the loading, expected on May 27, had been delayed because other companies involved failed to complete the necessary paperwork.
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