Why the fuss about Baku's new oil pipeline?

The oil flowing through the new pipeline connecting the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean has been hailed by George Bush as a lubricant for global growth. But who are the real winners?

What is the BTC pipeline? The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline: a brand new 1,094 mile stretch running from Baku, on the Azerbaijan coast, through Georgia, and then on all the way to Ceyhan in Turkey. It is so long that each gallon of oil will take two months to travel its full distance. This is the first time the Caspian and Mediterranean have been linked by an oil pipeline and means that those transporting oil from the rich fields of Baku can now avoid the overcrowded Black Sea ports, Russia and the Middle East. The Caspian region is thought to hold the world's third-largest oil reserves (they are estimated to be the same size as those of Qatar, although no one knows quite how accurate these estimates are) and when the pipeline is fully operational, one million barrels of oil per day should be pumped through it. That's equal to 1% of global production.

Why is the pipeline so important?

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