Environmental authorities have halted construction on a section of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline seen as a key to reducing Western dependence on Middle East oil, officials said Friday. Tamar Pirveli, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said construction was stopped because British Petroleum, which heads the consortium building the pipeline, had not submitted paperwork guaranteeing specific environmental protections for a pipeline section passing close to the Borzhomi Gorge. The gorge, 150 kilometres west of Tbilisi, is famed for its mineral springs and spas. Its bottled water is one of Georgia\'s most widely known exports. Pirveli said the ministry expected BP to submit the necessary documents within two weeks. Rusudan Medzmariasvhili, a BP representative in Tbilisi, said the company was confident the issue would be settled soon. \"This delay won\'t set us back,\" he said. The $3.6-billion, 1,760-kilometre pipeline runs from Baku, Azerbaijan, to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, whereoil from Azerbaijan\'s Caspian Sea fields is to be loaded onto tankers for Western markets. It is set to begin operation next year. (AP)