Russia is gambling big with its Turkish Stream problem. Gazprom is preparing to begin work on the Turkish Stream pipeline without there being an Russian-Turkish intergovernmental agreement in place. The Japanese firm Saipem, which Russia has been paying for months … Continue reading →
Interview on John Batchelor Show, WABC-AM (770AM, New York City), 18 May 2015.
Turkish Stream pipeline prospects are not good in the long run even if Russia immediately begins laying the pipeline originally commissioned for use in South Stream.
Caspian Sea gas is not so plentiful in Turkmenistan, where the main deposits are in the country’s southeast. Yet with the completion of the East-West Pipeline (EWP), that gas is starting to become politically available for export westward through the … Continue reading →
With Russia politically weakened by the Ukraine imbroglio and the European Union more intent than ever finally to establish its autonomy in energy policy via Caspian Sea gas, Turkmenistan has opened up again the possibility for exporting its gas under … Continue reading →
A source at Turkmenneftegazstroi is reported as saying the Turkmenistan pipeline from Dauletabad in the southeast to the Caspian Sea coast (“East-West Pipeline” or EWP) for natural gas (see dotted line across south in the map) will be completed in … Continue reading →
Russia continues to play hardball with natural gas for the European Union, trying to get Brussels to sacrifice Ukraine in return for the promise of better relations with Moscow. This geo-economic and power-political jousting is conditioned by the fact that EU sanctions against Russia will begin to expire in three phases between March and July unless there is an EU consensus to keep them in place.
Continue reading →Interview on John Batchelor Show, WABC-AM 770 (New York City), 10 December 2014. … Continue reading →
Keynote Speech to the Second Baku Forum of Association of Scholars of International Relations (ASIRS) These days people use the word “unprecedented” a lot. But there is a truly new international situation around the South Caucasus. Both Russia and Turkey … Continue reading →
Azerbaijan upstream activities in oil and gas are moving into Central Asia, with two deals recently signed, the last just a few days ago, to build oil refineries in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. New Azerbaijan upstream activities in Central Asia An … Continue reading →
The president of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Rovnag Abdullaev, has announced that the US$8 billion-plus Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline may be expanded four-fold from its initially planned volume of 8-16 billion cubic meters per year (bcm/y) to as … Continue reading →