Diplomatic attention has intensified on the project of the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP) while both obstacles to and incentives for its realization increase. Turkmenistan’s commitment to the project may be inferred from the finally completed construction of its East-West Pipeline … Continue reading →
With the accord having been reached over Iran’s nuclear development program, there is now more active interest in the possibility of Azerbaijan Iran gas cooperation. Both Iranian and Azerbaijani reports suggest that the two countries are discussing this. I have … Continue reading →
Regional energy governance and the Southern Gas Corridor Public lecture at the Ludwig von Mises Institute–Europe, Brussels, 16 June 2015. Audio Topic Not long ago Russia’s President Vladimir Putin scrapped plans for South Stream, the major new natural gas … Continue reading →
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has announced a plan to construct an oil pipeline to Turkey with a volume of 1 million barrels per day (bpd), move hinting at tectonic shifts in the geo-economics and associated geopolitics … Continue reading →
Keynote speech to the Seventh Annual Eurasian Pipelines Colloquium, “Geo-Eco Politics, Eurasian Energy, and (elusive) Transparency,” School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, 16 April 2012. Thank you. I have been asked to make some remarks on the theme … Continue reading →
Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbaev has just completed a two-day official visit to enhance Kazakhstan-European Union relations. He went to Belgium, the present chairman-in-office of the European Union Council, and France. Kazakhstan is itself president-in-office of the Organization for Security and … Continue reading →
In mid-August, BP Azerbaijan announced that oil from Turkmenistan is now entering the BTC in Azerbaijan and will constitute between four and five percent of its present throughput of 800,000 barrels per day (bpd), which is being upgraded to 1.2 million bpd with a view towards eventual inclusion of oil from Kazakhstan’s offshore Tengiz field. These practical steps of cooperation with Azerbaijan, combined with the mid-August announcement in Ashgabad of new directions in Turkmenistan’s gas export policy, point the way towards a European direction for future Turkmenistani production, not forgetting China and the possibility of South Asia, while Iran is given only marginal reference and Russia is ignored.
Continue reading →The presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan ended their four-way Caspian summit meeting in Kazakhstan’s resort city of Kenderly last weekend with its purpose and consequences as clear as distant figures in an early autumn mist. Two elements did … Continue reading →
The appearance of Nabucco financing sources has made possible the signing this week of a transit agreement to govern the natural gas pipeline. The agreement marks an important staging post in bringing to reality the long-touted energy route, which is … Continue reading →
Azerbaijan, for two decades a reliable energy supplier for the West, may reconsider that “partnership” as Europe drags its feet over the proposed Nabucco pipeline and the Caspian country sees its hope that it could eventually join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization extinguished.
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