UPDATE 3-BP resumes gas flows to Turkey, oil pipeline shut

(Recasts lead; adds Turkish PM, Russian troops in port, details)

By Daniel Fineren and Margarita Antidze

LONDON/TBILISI, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Azeri gas flows to Turkey resumed on Thursday after gunfire ceased in Georgia and Turkey's prime minister visited the region to ensure pipeline security, but oil remained cut off as Russian tanks patrolled Georgia.

A BP-led (BP.L) group suspended oil flows to the Georgian port of Supsa and gas exports to Turkey via Georgia on Tuesday, citing security concerns over a military conflict between Russia and Georgia.

This forced BP to cut output from its huge oil fields in Azerbaijan, which were already suffering from a severe reduction after a blast in Turkey damaged the key Baku-Ceyhan export route days before the conflict in Georgia began.

Traders estimate its markets are losing up to 1 million barrels per day in supplies.

Russia and Georgia agreed a ceasefire on Tuesday but Russian tanks have been seen in several Georgian cities outside the main conflict zone of South Ossetia.

U.S. President George W. Bush has expressed concerns Russian forces are blocking access to ports and blowing up Georgian vessels.

BP decided on Thursday it was safe enough to reopen the gas pipeline toward Turkey, but its partners declared force majeure on oil exports from the Georgian Black Sea port of Supsa as BP kept the pipeline shut due to security reasons.

"The oil pipeline is still currently under review," BP spokesman Toby Odone said.

Supsa, which can load between 45,000 and 90,000 bpd, is only 15 km (9 miles) south of Poti, a smaller oil port where Russian troops and tanks were deployed on Thursday, according to the Russian General Staff. It had earlier denied troops were there.

The military conflict and the blast on the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline have severely damaged the image of the Caspian Sea -- which offers routes that by-pass Russian territory -- as a reliable energy source.

REPAIRS BEGIN

Turkey is aspiring to become the key transit hub for the landlocked Caspian Sea. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan rushed to Tbilisi on Thursday after visiting Moscow the previous day to promote the idea of a new regional security organisation.

"It would focus on regional peace and common security. It would include economic cooperation, security of energy supply. It would be based on the OSCE principles," Erdogan said.

"I was pleased to see that the Russian Federation also showed interest in this idea," he told reporters in Tbilisi, a day after meeting Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

News of the Baku-Ceyhan blast supported oil prices last week, as did news of the Russian military campaign in Georgia and Russian attempts to bomb Georgian pipelines, which Moscow denied again on Thursday.

BP and its partners, which were forced to cut output more than fourfold at their Azeri fields from the usual 850,000 bpd, are now hoping that Turkish state firm Botas will be able to quickly repair the line to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.

A senior source at Botas said repair work had begun on Thursday, but gave no estimate of how long it would take to reopen the 1 million bpd line.

A senior Energy Ministry source said an initial assessment indicated the damage was not great and that repairs may take less than an earlier forecast of two weeks. (Additional reporting by Lada Yevgrashina in Baku, Alex Lawler in London and Orhan Coskun in Ankara; writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov in Moscow; editing by Karen Foster)