BP says it is set to transfer running of BTC pipeline to Azerbaijan's SOCAR

June 2 (Reuters) - British energy major BP said on Tuesday it was on track to hand over the running of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline to Azerbaijan’s SOCAR from July 1 as part of a contractual obligation.

Operational since 2006, the pipeline has the capacity to move more than one million barrels per day. It is designed to deliver oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean, bypassing politically unstable regions, including Iran and Russia's Caucasus.

Giovanni Cristofoli, BP's regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, announced the transfer in a statement, stressing that it was not about BP divesting and that BP was "excited" to see SOCAR take over as the pipeline's operator.

BP did not reply to a request for comment on the nature of the contractual obligations cited in the statement and what the move means for BP's stake.

State oil firm SOCAR owns 32.97% of BTC via its AzBTC subsidiary. BP has a 30.1% stake, with the remainder held by eight other stakeholders.

(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova, Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Edwina Gibbs)