Oil wars loom
as US and Russia vie for power
Posted on 2/1/2004 10:26:25 AM
Ed Blanche, a member of
the International Institute of Strategic Studies, is a journalist who has covered the Middle East for many years.
He is based in Beirut.
Oil refineries in Western Europe have suffered a severe shortage of oil because Russian exports through the Bosphorus Strait
have been drastically reduced in recent days. Turkish
authorities say they have cut back
traffic through the narrow waterway
from the Black Sea to
the Mediterranean because of bad weather and enforcement
of strict regulations governing oil traffic.
The strait is considered to be one of the world's
most dangerous waterways when there is bad weather,
such as snow or fog, and
the Turks are paranoid about
collisions involving tankers that could
cause explosions in the heavily populated
areas around Istanbul. But European oil sources suspect
that slowdown imposed on Russian oil exports through
the strait is part of an effort by the Turkish
government to reduce such traffic
over time because it will compete with
the US-backed pipeline being laid from the
oilfields outside Baku in Azerbaijan, through Tbilisi, Georgia, to Turkey's loading terminal at
Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.
The $2.9 billion, 1,760km pipeline, known as the BTC, is intended to be the main
conduit for Caspian Sea oil
to Western Europe, cutting Russian and Iranian
influence in the energy-rich Caspian.
Due for completion
in 2005, the pipeline being built by
a consortium led by British oil
giant BP will pump up to
1 million barrels per day (bpd).
In late January,
at least nine large oil tankers had been waiting for
weeks to enter the Black
Sea to lift some 370,000 metric tons of Russian oil for export,
according to officials at the port of Odessa. They said authorities
had been forced to cut transshipment
from 1.8 million metric tons to
300,000 over the previous month after the Turks
imposed strict regulations on transits to avoid possible
accidents in the Bosphorus. Bad weather and increased
traffic are forcing delays for about 100 vessels
waiting to enter the strait.
Russia is ramping up its oil
exports, particularly while prices are
high, and the country has become highly dependent
on oil revenues. Russian oil production
is currently pegged at around 6.3 million bpd and Moscow
would like to challenge Saudi
Arabia, with a production rate of 8.1 million bpd, and
make serious inroads in the North American market. Recent efforts by Riyadh
to persuade Moscow to coordinate
oil production with Saudi Arabia,
the world's top exporter and the
dominant force in the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) have got nowhere.
The bloodless revolution in Georgia, where work began on a section of the pipeline in May, has produced a staunchly pro-Western
government following the ouster of Eduard
Shevardnadze on Nov 23, blocking Russian efforts to impose
its will in the former Soviet
republic and take control of its bankrupt economy.
Georgia is of huge strategic
importance to the West and Russia
because it straddles the planned oil
route.
The Bush administration is starting to play hardball
with Moscow after the post-9/11 honeymoon because of differences over Iraq and other
issues, and is clearly in no mood to allow the
Russians to make mischief in Georgia. The Americans had long supported Shevardnadze, but they dumped him when
they saw that his continued rule could trigger
a new civil war and when
he, for all
his pro-Western sympathies, concluded that strong relations
with Russia were essential for Georgia's survival.
The new president,
Mikhail Saakashvili, so far has shown strong pro-Western
leanings.
Hard-line hawks in
Washington want to eliminate Russian influence entirely in Georgia and are pressing
Moscow to quit two military
bases it still maintains in Georgia. Whether or not that happens,
Moscow could still use secessionist
movements in three of Georgia's regions - South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Adzharia - to stir up
trouble.
These regions control the main
trading routes from Georgia into Russia and Turkey
and thus are vital to
the country's economic recovery, for which there
can be little hope without an end to the conflicts
within Georgia's borders. Saakashvili has accused Russia of undermining Georgian sovereignty by supporting the separatists, and hosting their leaders
in Moscow in December.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is seeking to strengthen
partnerships with the former Soviet
republics in Central Asia and the
Caucasus and that is certain to antagonize the
Russians, already deeply concerned about the alliance's
eastward march right up to
Russia's borders. Georgia, where US Special Forces are training
local military units, could become
the cockpit of a new Cold War
as old East-West rivalries flare once again.
Another major outlet from the
Caspian is being planned to carry
natural gas from Turkmenistan through the restive
Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan to Pakistan's Arabian
Sea coast. The 1,635km pipeline, expected to cost
$3.5 billion, will transport up to
30 billion cubic meters of gas from
the rich oilfields at Daulatabad in southern Turkmenistan, which contain the
world's fifth largest gas reserves.
But the project could be hit by
trouble in Kandahar, once the headquarters
of the Taleban regime ousted by
the Americans after 9/11.
Taleban loyalists are now in the
throes of a violent resurgence in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
With the pipeline in jeopardy, it is in the West's interests
to ensure that the Taleban
diehards do not succeed and NATO plans to significantly expand its current
5,700-strong force in Afghanistan, where the US has some 10,000 troops deployed.
Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has begun to claw back
influence in Central Asia and the
Caucasus it lost with the collapse
of the Soviet Union. It has opened
a new military base at Kant in Kyrgyzstan outside the capital,
Bishkek, which now has its eyes
glued on Moscow. Annoyed by western
criticism over human rights and
endemic corruption, Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, appears intent on fostering better ties with Moscow.
The two countries
recently signed a major oil deal.
Expect to see wider confrontation
between Washington and Moscow in the Caucasus
and Central Asia as construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline progresses. Dirty tricks are
likely - by both sides - in the struggle for
energy and political influence in these regions.