C'mon Thomas! I'VE NEVER BOUGHT AND NEVER WILL BUY THAT CASPIAN HOKUM...
I mean, just look at the map:
american.edu
Now, you can see that, geopolitically speaking, it just makes no sense! Actually, I suspect that that whole Caspian-oil twist was devised by Yank-bashing spinmeisters who assume that Joe Six-Pack can't tell the Caspian Sea from the Black Sea... and they've guessed right, I'm afraid.
Indeed, it's clear that Yugoslavia is not remotely involved in the exploitation of Caspian oil. The challenge for (Western) oil companies is to pipe oil as straight as possible to an open sea, that is, either the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean or the Black Sea/Mediterranean. Now, let's assume that the bulk of it ends up in a Black Sea terminal, why on earth would the US dig yet another pipeline from the Black Sea down to the Dalmatian coast?! To get the oil closer to their EUROPEAN friends?!? There's no need for the US to mess about with pipelines that far... once the oil flows out of a Black sea terminal or an Iranian port in the Gulf, the next step for US oil tankers is the shortest sea lane to the US. Period.
I guess the scrap below sums it up:
To Washington, the Islamist regime in Iran looks even less friendly. "The last thing we need," says a White House aide, "is to rely on the Persian Gulf as the main access for more oil."
Officials in Tehran point out that a pipeline southward through Iran would be the shortest way to go. "This is all ridiculous," says Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, an adviser to the ministers of petroleum and foreign affairs in Tehran, as he draws a map of proposed routes through Russia and Turkey. "We have our hands in the Caspian Sea and our feet in the Persian Gulf, the simplest outlet for this energy."
The Iranians don't rely just on logic to press their case. They cite treaties with the Soviet Union dating back to 1921 and 1940 that declare the sea a common lake between the two countries. Tehran is willing to negotiate a new agreement but demands veto rights over any aspect it doesn't like. If Iran's interests are not taken into account, says Ardebili, it will deal with what it considers illegal activities in the Caspian by using "constructive--and possibly destructive" countermeasures.
By last fall the U.S. was pressing hard for the option it favors, a system of oil-and- gas lines starting through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, running under the Caspian Sea to Baku, then through Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean. This elaborate scheme is not an easy sell. The long pipeline would cost about $4 billion to build and add up to $4 to the cost of each barrel of oil it carried. To many company executives, it seems easier to use the southern route through Iran or the northern route through Russia to the Black Sea. [...]
From:
time.com |
