by SUAT DELGEN
While Turkiye is legally bound by international agreements to ensure uninterrupted oil flow to Israel through the multinational BTC pipeline, it can leverage provisional ICJ measures to halt oil, and consequently, Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza.
Israel receives 40 percent of its oil through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, a critical energy route running from the Caspian Sea through Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkiye to the Turkish port of Ceyhan and onward, via tanker, to Israeli ports.
The pipeline primarily transports oil from Azerbaijan’s Azeri–Chirag–Deepwater Gunashli (ACG) field and condensate from the Shah Deniz field. British Petroleum (BP) operates the ACG field on behalf of the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC), a consortium of international oil companies.
Another consortium, including BP, SOCAR, MOL, Equinor, TPAO, Eni, TotalEnergies, ITOCHU, INPEX, ExxonMobil, and ONGC Videsh, operates the BTC pipeline and markets the oil globally. On 10 May, BP announced this consortium’s involvement in the pipeline’s management.
Way back in 1999, a Transit State Agreement and an Intergovernmental Agreement were signed between the consortium and Turkiye, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, ratified by the Turkish Grand National Assembly, and officially came into effect on 10 September 2000.
Pressure to half the oil flow to Israel
On 2 May, in the face of growing domestic pressure to sever ties with Israel over its brutal war on Gaza, Turkiye announced a complete suspension of all import and export transactions to the occupation state until uninterrupted humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza.
But what about the oil? With so many other states and global multinationals involved, can and has Turkiye stopped the oil being transported from Ceyhan to Israel?
Geopolitical importance of the BTC Pipeline
The BTC pipeline emerged from the geopolitical shifts that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. As newly independent states in the Caspian region, particularly Azerbaijan, sought to develop their vast oil and gas reserves, they sought to export these resources to western markets without relying on Russian transit routes. Washington explicitly backed the BTC pipeline to reduce Moscow’s influence and create an alternative export route for Caspian energy.
For its part, Turkiye viewed the BTC project as a strategic opportunity to boost its significance as a key energy corridor. Despite initial doubts about the pipeline’s feasibility, political commitment from the US, Turkiye, and regional states, along with investment from major international oil companies like BP, gradually propelled the project forward.
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