The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline is an important asset to the region and will help stimulate energy production and distribution, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said during an address at an Istanbul energy summit Monday.

Biden said no one believed a project like this would ever come to fruition, but Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey made it happen. The pipeline has been transporting oil since 2005; construction of the pipeline had begun two years earlier in April 2003.

The pipeline runs through the three nations, with 443 km of it running through Azerbaijan, 249 km running through Georgia and 1,076 km running through Turkey, for a total length of 1,768 km.

The pipeline's majority shareholder is British Petroleum, with 30.1 percent. Other investors include AzBTC, with 25 percent; Chevron, with 8.9 percent; TPAO, with 6.53 percent; ENI, with 5 percent; Statoil, with 8.71 percent; Itochu; with 3.4 percent; ConocoPhillips, with 2.5 percent; and ONGC, with 2.36 percent, among other corporations.