U.S. oil majors Exxon Mobil and ChevronTexaco have denied claims that they are considering building a trans-Balkan pipeline to ship oil westward from the Caspian and the Black Seas, Reuters reported. The head of Albanian, Macedonian and Bulgarian Oil Corp. (AMBO), which manages the project, said last week the two majors are in regular discussions on the project, which envisions carrying 750,000 barrels a day of landlocked Caspian oil from Bulgaria to Albania via Macedonia. An Exxon Mobil spokeswoman said the notion that the company might get involved in building the line was "very, very premature," adding,"There have been some discussions but they have been very preliminary." The AMBO project, which has been on the drawing board since 1996, aims to bring growing oil supplies from Caspian states such as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, bypassing the heavily used Bosphorus Straits through Turkey.