Japan 'Gets In' on TBC Pipeline

Japan continues its push to find alternative sources of oil. The latest example is Japan's financial and industrial commitment to help construct the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. "The new pipeline will safeguard the supply of oil to the world market, including oil supplies to Japan," according to the head of the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation in Moscow.

He said the Japanese bank signed an agreement in Baku at the beginning of February with an international consortium on a loan of $580 million. Japanese companies Mitsui, Sumitomo and Marubeni Itochu Steel will participate in the pipeline's construction. He said the total sum of the contracts they have secured for supplying equipment comes to about $400 million.