ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's government has chosen local firm Calik Enerji to build a 550-kilometer Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline, which will transport crude from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, officials said yesterday.

The pipeline carrying Russian and Caspian basin crude is aimed at bypassing the shipping bottleneck in the congested Bosporus. Its cost is estimated at around $1.5 billion (1.23 billion euros).

All ministers have signed the decree naming Calik, which has cooperated with Italy's Eni on feasibility studies for the pipeline. The decree will be submitted to President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the officials, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

The government gave six months to Calik-Eni to complete its engineering and design studies on the pipeline.

The decree has been on hold since January because several ministers refused to sign it as the project was to be awarded to a company without a tender being held.

The president's approval is required for final authorization of the choice of the company for the pipeline, which will transport 50 million-70 million tons oil a year.