BP says unclear when Baku-Supsa pipe can restart

TBILISI (Reuters) - Oil flow through the BP-led Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline is nearly back up to its normal daily average of 700,000 to 800,000 barrels per day after this month's two-week closure due to an explosion in its Turkish stretch, a BP spokesman said.

"It is operating -- not as normal, but pretty close to it," spokesman Matt Taylor said in Tbilisi. "We're ramping up towards that sort of figure."

Separately, he said BP was still looking to reopen the oil pipeline between Baku, Azerbaijan and Supsa on Georgia's Black Sea coast, which was pumping 150,000 bpd until it was closed in 2006. But after this month's war between Russia and Georgia, it was hard to say when this could happen.

"We just want to get it up and running as soon as we can but it's very hard to put a timeline on it right now," Taylor said.

"We'll be closely following the evolving situation between the two countries."

On Friday, Reuters correspondents in Georgia saw deep craters alongside the Baku-Supsa pipeline, 25 km (15 miles) from the border with Azerbaijan, which residents said were caused by Russian bombing raids during the short war that broke out on August 7-8.

Three of the craters were within 15 metres of the pipeline.

Taylor said BP had been in the process of reopening Baku-Supsa at the time the conflict erupted.

"The plan was to bring it back on line at around 90,000 bpd to provide some flexibility for BTC," he said.