However, a recent scientific report could seriously delay the ?1.8 billion project because it suggests the pipeline will corrode, and is therefore, in effect, uninsurable.

The report follows tests on the pipeline, which Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCIC) commissioned as part of the multi-million-pound claim it is bringing against BP. The British construction giant Amec is also suing the oil company.

The claim centres on who is responsible for delays following the cracking of a vital anti-corrosion coating used to protect 60,000 pipeline joints. The cracks occurred within months of construction starting in August 2003.

BP blames the contractors for poor application of the coating. CCIC and Amec claim BP forced them to use a coating with no track record, despite warnings from its own experts that the pipeline would rapidly corrode.

Unless the claim is settled soon, the case is heading for an international arbitration tribunal in London.

Lord Browne, BP?s chief executive, has known about the coating failure since last year when Derek Mortimore, a pipeline consultant sacked from the BTC project for speaking out, alerted him to the financial risks.

?BP is burying thousands of environmental time- bombs,? Mortimore told The Sunday Times. ?This is engineering of the madhouse.?

A BP spokesman said: ?The pipeline construction, operation, inspection and testing procedures are carried out rigorously to the highest industry standards.

?We are happy with the pipeline coating and as far as we are concerned (its) integrity is not in question.?