Turkey will start constructing a new oil pipeline in 2007 to ease the burden of the Istanbul and Canakkale straits, which carry 120 million barrels of oil a year, local daily "Zaman" reported on Friday.

The 550-km-long Samsun-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline Project, which was jointly projected by the Turkish Calik Group and Italy's Eni, is expected to take two years in construction.

The two companies would immediately start transport of oil once the project was completed, said the report, adding an estimated three million barrels of oil will pass through the straits by 2013.

Calik Group's boss Ahmet Calik was quoted as saying that the new pipeline project, which will cost 1.5 billion U.S. dollars, will make the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan become a strategic oil export hub in the region.

Source: Xinhua