The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the controversial $3.6bn scheme to bring more Caspian oil to world markets, is to be officially opened on Wednesday, after 13 years of argument, eight years of detailed planning and almost three years of construction.

BP, the oil group and its partners, earlier this month started putting crude into the 1,770km pipeline, which winds its way from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, through the mountains of central Georgia and eastern Turkey, to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.