UPDATE 4-Turkish oil link burns, may take 1-2 weeks to open
(Adds loadings halted)
By Orhan Coskun and Lada Yevgrashina
ANKARA/BAKU, Aug 7 (Reuters) - The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline is still ablaze after an explosion and may not reopen for another one to two weeks, a senior source at Turkey's state-owned pipeline company Botas said on Thursday.
The $4 billion BTC pipeline pumps the equivalent of more than 1 percent of world supply from fields in the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan on the Turkish Mediterranean coast.
Stocks at the Ceyhan depot, which had been used to continue loadings at the port following the explosion on Tuesday night, have run dry, the source told Reuters.
Trade sources said loadings of Azeri crude at Ceyhan had now been halted. "There is no loading," a shipping agent said.
Opened in 2006, the one million barrels per day (bpd) pipeline is the first to carry large volumes of Caspian crude without going through Russia.
The Botas source, who declined to be named, said the fire could take two more days to put out, while the repair of the pipeline would take one to two weeks. The Ceyhan depot has capacity of seven million barrels.
Kurdish separatists claimed responsibility for the blast which caused the blaze and helped to push oil prices higher.
London Brent crude LCOc1 rose by more than $1 on Thursday on supply concerns in Turkey, Nigeria and Iran.
"The fire will continue longer than (previously) anticipated," the Botas source said.
"The method for fighting the fire is being discussed with the BTC management. Depending on the method used, the opening of the line may take one or two weeks," he added, without providing more details.
British oil company BP Plc (BP.L), a pipeline shareholder, said the BTC partners had declared force majeure on exports, freeing themselves from contractual obligations.
BP said on Thursday the group that it leads producing oil in Azerbaijan had started diverting crude meant for Ceyhan to other routes, including Georgia's port of Supsa, after the explosion.
"We are actively considering alternative routes," BP's spokeswoman in Azerbaijan told Reuters.
SUPPLIES DIVERTED
She said some crude had already been diverted to Supsa on the Black Sea, adding BP and its partners had started reducing oil output from their fields to avoid a glut on the onshore facilities.
The separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrilla group claimed responsiblity for the explosion on the pipeline in a statement on its website.
The PKK, which usually attacks military targets in southeastern Turkey, previously said it was behind a blast on an Iranian-Turkish natural gas pipeline in March. The attack halted gas exports from Iran to Turkey for five days.
BP owns 30.1 percent of BTC, while Socar holds 25 percent. Other shareholders include U.S. Chevron (CVX.N) and ConocoPhillips (COP.N), Norway's StatoilHydro (STL.OL), Italy's ENI (ENI.MI) and France's Total (TOTF.PA).
Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler was on his way to inspect the site of the blast in Refahiye county in eastern Turkey. (Additional reporting by Thomas Grove, Alex Lawler and Ikuko Kao in London; writing by Daren Butler; editing by James Jukwey)
