Following the terrible earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria earlier this week, BP Azerbaijan has imposed force majeure on loadings of Azeri crude from the Turkish port of Ceyhan, the Azeri unit of the UK-based supermajor told Reuters on Wednesday.

BP Azerbaijan has sent a notice to crude oil shippers, according to company spokeswoman Tamam Bayatly, after the oil port at Ceyhan stopped operating on Monday as a result of the earthquake.

The Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline’s sections in Azerbaijan and Georgia are run by BP Azerbaijan. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, South Caucasus Pipeline, the enormous Shah Deniz gas field, and Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) oilfield are all BP-operated facilities in Azerbaijan (SCP).

Following the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the Ceyhan oil port in southern Turkey temporarily halted operations on Monday. The distance between the oil terminal and the earthquake’s epicentre is around 155 kilometres (96 miles).

The earthquake caused the Ceyhan oil terminal to stop operating, although the Kirkuk-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipelines in Turkey sustained no damage. The 1,768 km (1,100 mi) long Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline transports crude oil from Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli (ACG) oil field in the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

On Tuesday, industry sources informed Reuters that oil flows from Iraq to Ceyhan had restarted. But as of Wednesday, the port for the Azeri crude flows remained inactive.