"The board of directors of the Baku-Ceyhan project discussed its (loading) programme on February 16," the head of Azerbaijan's state oil firm SOCAR, Natik Aliyev said in a television broadcast.
"It is expected that the first tanker with Azeri oil may be loaded in Ceyhan on September 30 - October 1 2005."
Aliyev said the Azeri section of the Transcaucusus pipeline will be filled with crude by mid-May and the section running through the republic of Georgia by the end of June.
Most of the line's oil will come from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oilfields off Azerbaijan's Caspian shore.
BP leads an international group developing the ACG fields, which have estimated recoverable reserves of 5.4 billion barrels and planned production of over 1 million bpd by 2009.
The group includes US firms ExxonMobil, Unocal, Delta Hess and Devon Energy, Japan's Itochu and INPEX, Norway's Statoil, Turkey's TPAO and Azeri state oil firm SOCAR.
Chirag is already online, pumping 6.57 million tonnes (132,000 bpd) of crude in 2004, which BP shipped by pipeline to the Georgian Black Sea port of Supsa.
Azeri produced its first commercial oil on February 13 and will pump 93,000 bpd this year. The deepwater Guneshli field is expected to begin production in 2008.
"In 2005, Azeri will produce around 5 million tonnes. In 2006, 11 million tonnes," Aliyev said, adding that Azerbaijan's total export potential would hit 24 million tonnes in 2006, 40 million in 2007 and 50 million tonnes a year by 2008.
"In 2008, output will begin on eastern Kashagan in Kazakhstan's Caspian sector, and that could also go into the Baku-Ceyhan," he said.
Once the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline hit operational capacity, Azerbaijan would likely stop shipping its crude via the link to the Russian port of Novorossiisk on the Black Sea, and intends to discuss reversing the pipeline, he said.