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| At a Glance... |
| Land
Area: 86,600 sq. km. |
| Lowest
Point: -28 meters (Caspian Sea) |
| Area
(comp.): Slightly smaller than Maine |
| Highest
Point: 4,485 meters (Bazarduzu Dagi Mountain) |
| Border
Countries: Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Iran |
| Climate: 9 of 11 climatic zones, mostly semi-arid steppe |
| Population: 7,771,092 (July 2001 est.) |
| Life
Expectancy: 63 years |
| Ethnic
Groups: Azeri (90%), Dagestani (3.2%), Russian (2.5%), Armenian (2.0%), other (2.3%) |
| Religions: Muslim (93.4%), Russian Orthodox (2.5%), Armenian Orthodox (2.3%), other (1.8%) |
| Languages: Azeri (89%), Russian (3%), Armenian (2%), other 6%) |
| Currency: Manat (4670 = $1 U.S.) |
| Literacy: 97% |
| GDP;
growth rate: $23.5 billion (2000 est.); 11.4 % |
| GDP
per capita: $3,000 (2000 est.) |
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Caspian
TransCo moves oil to markets worldwide In the
mid-1990s, the initiation of oil production from new discoveries
in the Caspian Sea Region presented a heavy challenge: how
to transport oil from the countries of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan
to markets in Europe and elsewhere. Caspian
TransCo Inc., a pioneer company doing business to international
standards in the Caspian region, provided a solution. The
company established an integrated, phased, multi-national
operation, passing through the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, and
Georgia and then on to the Black Sea port of Batumi.
The system
starts with reception of the crude oil at Eastern Caspian
ports. After a day's journey via tanker ship, the oil is then
discharged at the Dubendi terminal in Azerbaijan where it
is transferred to huge storage tanks. These tanks are connected
to Caspian TransCo's railway tank cars loading gantry by pipeline. From
storage, the oil is then transported further on by one of
two means: either by the Dubendi-Ali Bayramli pipeline together
with the Ali-Bayramli - Batumi rail link, or via the Dubendi-Batumi
rail link. On a daily basis, Caspian TransCo’s employees
inspect, load, measure and dispatch up to 10 trains in total,
on both rail links with a total dispatch capacity of 20,000
metric tons. Because
of improvements throughout the system, Caspian TransCo's capacity
has increased from 1.2 million metric tons per year in early
1996 to seven million metric tons per year in 2000. The system
has the potential to increase the capacity to approximately
10 million metric tons per year. Today, Caspian TransCo Inc.
transports almost half of all the oil transported in the Caspian
Sea basin. Over 1,000 people in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, the UK and Turkey are involved in the transportation business of Caspian TransCo, Inc.
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