BP shut down a pipeline carrying Caspian oil from Azerbaijan to the Georgian Sea on Tuesday citing concern about security in Georgia. A BP spokesman said the 150,000 barrels a day pipeline from Baku to Supsa on the Georgian Black Sea had been closed as a “security precaution.” He said “very small volumes of Azeri oil, less than 100,000 barrels a day,” are now being exported via railways across the Caucasus and a pipeline to Russia. He said BP was unaware of any attacks on oil and gas pipelines in Georgia, despite Georgian claims that Russian warplanes had bombed the pipelines. The Georgian prime minister said Tuesday that Georgian railways and oil ports and Black Sea ports were in working order. The prime minister of Kazakhstan said “no harmful action had been taken at Batumi,” a Georgian port owned by KazMunaigas, the Kazakh state oil company. However, the prime minister ordered a halt to exports across the Caucasus to Batumi on Monday. The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned on Tuesday that the conflict in Georgia threatens the strategic energy export corridor linking the Caspian and central Asia with western oil and gas markets. “Recent escalation in the military engagement between Russia and Georgia poses a threat to certain key oil and gas pipelines which transit Georgia,” the IEA said in a report issued shortly before Russia declared a ceasefire in Georgia. The pipelines, built by foreign consortia with strong political backing from the U.S., have eased Russia’s stranglehold over oil and gas exports from the landlocked Caspian region. Source: [1] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e85a732-6866-11dd-a4e5-0000779fd18c,dwp_uuid=e8477cc4-c820-11db-b0dc-000b5df10621.html