Kazakhstan is set to begin shipping oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, the country's prime minister announced Thursday.

The former Soviet republic laying on the edges of the Caspian Sea will be sending around 1.5 million tons of oil on annual basis as of January 2023 via the pipeline, Kazakh Prime Minister Alihan Ismailov told reporters.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is a 1,768-kilometer (1,099-mile) pipeline that connects Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and Ceyhan, a port on the southeastern Mediterranean coast of Türkiye, via Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.

"In particular, there is an agreement to export 1.5 million tons of oil via Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan starting Jan. 1 of next year, with a potential increase up to 6-6.5 million tons," Ismailov was cited as saying by Russian state-run news agency Tass.

Ismailov said a road map has been developed in Kazakhstan within the framework of oil export diversification.

"Particularly, (it includes) the direction via Aktau Port to Baku Port and further on toward the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Moreover, the Baku-Supsa (pipeline) in Georgia and Baku-Batumi where we have a terminal in the port. There is also a railway direction from Atyrau toward Batumi and toward Uzbekistan. There is also the direction to the People’s Republic of China. On all those directions, the work is currently underway on expansion and on the increase of the oil export potential," he said.