In 2004 Turkey had 3,177 kilometers of natural gas pipelines and 3,562 kilometers of oil pipelines. In the early 2000s, controversial pipeline issues were Turkey’s role in new routes bringing oil and natural gas from the flourishing Caspian Sea region into Europe and the configuration of a new pipeline that would connect Russia with the Mediterranean and bypass the Bosporus. The potentially lucrative Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) line, 1,000 kilometers of which passes through Turkey, began bringing oil from the Caspian in 2005. That line is advantageous because it bypasses both Russia and the crowded Bosporus corridor. Because the BTC line is considered insufficient for future volume, Turkey is involved in international discussions of several other pipeline routes that would bypass the Bosporus.