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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| The pipeline that will change the world - Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan is in business |
| 2005-05-25 |
| The first drops of crude will snake their way along a pipeline that traverses some of the most unstable and war-ravaged countries on earth. This is the oil flow that was meant to save the West, and this morning the taps were turned on. Only 42 inches wide, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan was supposed to alter global oil markets forever. The 1,000-mile project has transformed the geopolitics of the Caucasus and its impact is now being felt in the vastness of central Asia. Output is supposed to reach one million barrels a day - more than 1 per cent of world production - from an underground reserve that could hold as many as 220 billion barrels. |
| Posted by:TMH |
| #8 N.B.: Right now, there are pipeline projects going on all over the place. Periodically I've been posting mention of these to RB, but nowhere I've seen a comprehensive list, which would be a real eye opener. The oil must flow. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-05-25 23:07 |
| #7 What Tom said. This isn't trivial but it's also not enough to make any real difference to either the oil price or our dependence on the middle east. Look at the #'s: Caspian pipeline's total capacity = 1 million bpd. Our total imports in Q1 2005 were 10.1m barrels per day (bdp). Even if we got all of the caspian output, which wont happen, this would only amount to less than 10% of our import requirements. In reality we won't get anywhere close to all of this oil, or even most of it. First in line are the west Europeans (aside from the UK and Norway, major oil producers in their own right), who will certainly get a large amount of Caspian crude passing through the mediterranean. These include Germany (total imports per day of ~2.5m bbl), France (~2m bpd imported), Italy ~1m bpd), Spain (~1m bpd). Secondly, the Japanese (~5m bdp in imports) and China (~4m bdp in imports) will surely get a large piece as well, perhaps as much as we will. Add India (~2m bpd imported) and other emerging economies and it's hard to see US imports getting more than maybe 20-30%, max, of the Caspian total. Which would represent not more than 2-3% of total US oil imports, absolute maximum. That's nice, but not enough to free us of dependence on the House of Saud or the FunHouse of Chavez. One other slight problem is that the Caucasus is a tinderbox. These nations, if one can call them that, are basically agglomerations of mountain fiefdoms run by various gangster types. Plus you have eastern Turkey, which may well become a war zone if the notion of greater Kurdistan gets legs. Add to the tinderbox ethnic and tribal and other feuds and you see a region that's hardly anymore stable than it was in the days of Tolstoy's Hajii Murad. I'll get excited when/if we get oil flowing from Sakhalin in the Russian Far East. I'd rather trust the USN (and the Japanese) to deal with N Korean potential threats than rely on a nightmare region like the Caucasus. |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-05-25 12:19 |
| #6 So, Jackel, do you think maybe they wrote the story to help terrorists know where to set their bombs? :-( |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-05-25 11:02 |
| #5 This article was written by leftist pussies. Remember, this is Fisk's paper. |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-05-25 10:54 |
| #4 "...one million barrels a day - more than 1 per cent of world production..." A good start, but not exactly a poke in the eye to Saudi Arabia and Iran. |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-05-25 10:19 |
| #3 The fact that the reserves may be 'only' 32 billion barrels rather than 200 billion barrels shouldn't be much of a bummer even a 32 billion barrel reserve can, if other things are right, sustain a 2 million barrel/day level for several decades which is probably above the physical capacity of the pipeline anyway |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-05-25 10:15 |
| #2 I wondered why so many Brits were going whoring in Azerbaijan. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2005-05-25 09:29 |
| #1 Take that lefty pussies! |
| Posted by: Halliburton: Friggin Huge Oil Pipeline Division 2005-05-25 09:24 |