[Reader-list] Oil & Central Asia - Background Research

Soenke Zehle soenke.zehle at web.de
Fri Nov 2 17:29:16 IST 2001 

NOTE: I didn't follow the Chomsky/Hitchens controversy in the US (if there
actually was one), but I guess the material below would add to the "resource
war" hypothesis. If this is old news, please forgive me, it's still a good
summary. S/Z

Drillbits & Tailings
Volume 6, Number 7
October 31, 2001
Project Underground http://www.moles.org

"The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are
democratic regimes friendly to the United States." - US vice president
Dick Cheney told the Cato Institute three years ago.

HOW OIL INTERESTS PLAY OUT IN US BOMBING OF AFGHANISTAN

We have synthesized a number of current analyses into some key facts
about how oil ties into the US government's long time involvement in
Central Asia and its hopes of accessing the oil and gas riches of the
area. Oil is clearly not the only force operating, and this is not a
comprehensive analysis, but it is an important piece of a complicated
political and economic struggle.

The United States has yet to provide concrete evidence that Osama bin
Laden was behind the attacks, but has pursued a bombing campaign anyway
against the Taliban and bin Laden with millions of innocent Afghanis
caught in the middle.  Some analysts are projecting a post-war
Afghanistan where the US military is used as “pipeline police.”
Following are some key points in how US oil interests play into the
current so-called "war on terrorism."

CENTRAL ASIA includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, parts of India and China. For a
map of the area go to: http://www.askasia.org/image/maps/cntasia1.htm

THE CASPIAN BASIN includes the Caspian Sea and surrounding countries,
Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Georgia. For a
map of the area go to: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/caspgrph.html

THE PERSIAN/ARABIAN GULF STATES include Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran,
Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman. For a map of the area go to:
http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/reference/gulfregion.html

*THE CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS AND THE CASPIAN BASIN ARE STAGGERINGLY
RESOURCE WEALTHY:

The Caspian Basin has an estimated US$5 trillion of oil and gas
resources. (1)

Central Asia has enormous quantities of undeveloped oil resources
including 6.6 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. (2)

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are the two major gas producers in Central
Asia. Turkmenistan contains the world's third largest natural gas
reserves. (3)

*THE UNITED STATES IS RESOURCE POOR AND THE LARGEST CONSUMER OF OIL:

The United States has only 3% of the world’s known oil reserves. (4)

Imports accounts for 60% of America’s daily oil consumption, 13% of that
comes from Persian/Arabian Gulf States which produce 18% of the world’s
supply of oil. 

With less than 5% of the world’s population, the US accounts for over
25% of the world’s oil consumption (5).

The United States would like to control Caspian Sea and Central Asian
oil in order reduce dependency on oil from the Persian/Arabian Gulf,
which it cannot control.

*PIPELINE ROUTES ARE KEY TO ACCESSING OIL AND GAS WEALTH FROM THE
CASPIAN BASIN:

"Those who control the oil routes out of Central Asia will impact all
future direction and quantities of flow and the distribution of revenues
from new production," said energy expert James Dorian in Oil & Gas
Journal on September 10, 2001.

The only existing export routes from the Caspian Basin lead through
Russia. Investors in Caspian oil and gas are interested in building
alternative pipelines to Turkey, Europe and Asia (6). Afghanistan
occupies a strategic position between the Middle East, Central Asia and
the Indian Subcontinent and lies squarely between Turkmenistan and the
lucrative, desirable and growing markets of India, China and Japan.

U.S. oil companies have been negotiating with the post-Soviet republics
of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan for access to the Caspian Basin for
years, but have made no progress because of the political instability in
the region (7). The United States, Russia and US oil companies are
currently struggling with each other to lay down pipeline routes that
leverage control of the flow of oil and favor political and profit
interests. 

"Afghanistan's significance from an energy standpoint stems from its
geographic position as a potential transit route for oil and natural gas
exports from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea. This potential includes
proposed multi-billion dollar oil and gas export pipelines through
Afghanistan..." said a US government Energy Information fact sheet in
September 2000.

In 1996, a Unocal-led consortium won a contract to build a 1,005 mile
oil pipeline and a companion 918-mile natural gas-pipeline, in addition
to a tanker-loading terminal in Pakistan's Arabian Sea port of Gwadan.
Annual projected income of the project was US2$ billion which in five
years would have paid for its costs. The US government and the Unocal
consortium feared that they could not build a pipeline as long as
Afghanistan, which had been battered by war since the Soviet withdrawal
in 1989, was unstable. In 1998, Unocal shelved the project just after
the US cruise missile strike against Bin Laden's Afghan camps (8).

*THE BUSH-CHENEY OILIGARCHY HAS LONG REPRESENTED OIL INTERESTS IN THE
CASPIAN REGION:

“Because of the instability in the Persian Gulf, Cheney and his fellow
oilmen have zeroed in on the world’s other major source of oil - the
Caspian Sea. Its rich oil and gas resources are estimated to be worth
US$4 trillion by US News and World Report. The Washington-based American
Petroleum Institute, voice of the major US oil companies, called the
Caspian region, ‘the area of greatest resource potential outside of the
Middle East,' according to Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas
Jefferson School of Law in the Chicago Tribune, August 2000.

Six US oil giants -- Unocal, Total, Chevron, Pennzoil, Amoco and Exxon
-- have invested heavily in the massive oilfield potential in
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The
region's untapped oil reserves are estimated to be worth up to $2,000
billion. (9)

The one serious drawback companies have faced is getting the supplies to
the right market, the energy-hungry Asian Pacific economies. Afghanistan
-- the only Central Asian country with very little oil -- is by far the
best route to transport the oil to Asia.

Enron, the biggest contributor to the Bush-Cheney campaign of 2000,
conducted the feasibility study for a US$2.5 billion trans-Caspian gas
pipeline which is being built under a joint venture agreement signed in
February 1999 between Turkmenistan, Bechtel and General Electric Capital
Services. 

In 1994, Cheney as CEO of Halliburton, a multi-billion oil and gas
services company, helped to broker a deal between Chevron (now
ChevronTexaco) and the state of Kazakhstan when he sat on the country’s
Oil Advisory Board. (10)

On behalf of oil companies, an array of former cabinet members from the
Bush Sr. administration have been actively involved in negotiations with
Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. They include former
secretary of state James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, former national
security advisor, John Sununu, former chief of staff and Dick Cheney,
former secretary of defense and now Vice President. (11)

*EVERYONE WHO HAS OIL AND GAS INTERESTS IN CENTRAL ASIA NEEDS STABILITY
IN AFGHANISTAN:

As one Russian newspaper described it, "Russia's worries are not hard to
understand. They have to do with postwar arrangements in Afghanistan.
Economic interests are paramount. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan need
stability in Afghanistan so that they can transit their oil/gas
independently." Russia has completed talks with the Tajiks on how to
share gas revenues after the war is over. They're estimating it will
take six years to achieve stability. (12)

SOURCES: 1. "War On Terror Profitable, Same Old Names, Faces Primed to
Make Big Buck off Tragedy," by Christopher Bollyn, American Free Press,
October 1, 2001; 2. ibid; 3.ibid; 4. “Fears Again of Oil Supplies at
Risk,” by Neela Banerjee, New York Times, October 14, 2001; 5. World
Petroleum Consumption, 1990-1999, Energy Information
Administration/International Energy Annual 1999; 6.ibid; 7.Oil
Omissions, Bush Sr., Cheney Have Big Stakes in Saudi Status Quo,
WorkingforChange.com, October 18, 2001; 8. ibif; 9. “Prospect of oil
riches speeds the wheels of war,” by Barry O’Kelly, Sunday Business
Post, Ireland, October 28, 2001; 10. Oil Omissions, Bush Sr., Cheney
Have Big Stakes in Saudi Status Quo, WorkingforChange.com, October 18,
2001; 11. War On Terror Profitable, Same Old Names, Faces Primed to Make
Big Buck off Tragedy, Christopher Bollyn, American Free Press, October
1, 2001; 12. “The God of Fossil Fuels," by James Ridgeway, The Village
Voice, October 16, 2001.

VITAL STATISTICS:  Proposed Gas Pipelines from Turkmenistan

1. Enron/Wing Merril BOTAS/ Gama Guris:
ROUTE: Turkmenistan – Azerbaijan – Turkey
DETAILS: Under Caspian Sea
COST: US$2.5 billion
STATUS: Contract for a Turkmenistan-turkey pipeline under the Caspian
Sea signed in 1999 by consortium made up of Bechtel Group and US General
Electric. 

2. Unocal, Delta Oil, Turkmenrosgaz
ROUTE: Turkmenistan – Pakistan - Afghanistan
DETAILS: 937 miles
COST: US$2.5 billion
STATUS: Suspended

3. Birdas – TAP
ROUTE: Turkmenistan – Pakistan - Afghanistan
DETAILS: 750 miles
COST: US$2.5 billion
STATUS: Suspended

4. Royal Dutch Shell, Gaz de France, Snamprogetti, Turkmenistan
ROUTE: Turkmenistan – Iran – Turkey
DETAILS: 1,875 miles
COST: US$2 billion
STATUS: Stalled

5. Mitsubishi, ExxonMobil, China, Turkmenistan
ROUTE: Turkmenistan – Kazakhstan – China - Japan
DETAILS: 5,000 miles
COST: US$22 billion
STATUS: Stalled

6. China – Iran – Turkmenistan
ROUTE: Kazakhstan – Turkmenistan – Iran – Persian Gulf
DETAILS: 1,500 miles
COST: US$2.5 billion
STATUS: Stalled

7. 120-mile-long gas pipeline connecting Iran-Turkmenistan opened in
December 1997

SOURCE: Taliban; Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia,
by Ahmed Rashid, Yale University Press Books, 2001.


Drillbits & Tailings is a monthly mining, oil and gas update published
by Project Underground online in English and Spanish. Back-issues are
archived on our web site <http://www.moles.org>. We welcome submissions
or news items, however we cannot offer remuneration.

Research assistance for Drillbits & Tailing is provided by
ImpactResearch: A Program of the DataCenter. ImpactResearch serves
environmental justice organizations by providing strategic research for
campaigns. ImpactResearch is subsidized by foundation grants. For more
information, please call 510-835-4692.


VIA <http://www.corpwatch.org>
October 25, 2001

WTO: Enron: Washington's Number One Behind-the-Scenes-GATS Negotiator
http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/wto/featured/2001/tclarke.html

What do Enron and the General Agreement on Trade in Services have in
common? A lot, according to Tony Clarke of the Polaris Institute. Enron,
the largest multi-sector service provider in the world, has a huge stake
in upcoming the WTO talks, which include negotiations on service trade.
The corporate giant remains a heavy hitter in negotiations on the GATs,
despite its current economic woes. This first article in our series on
corporate influence on the WTO, looks at how Enron uses its clout to
shape agreements on cross-border trade in services from healthcare and
drinking water to telecommunications. This clear and thorough piece
outlines all the overlapping relationships and organizational
connections between big business, government and international trade
organizations that ultimately threaten democracy on a global scale.

NOTE: The one below old, but good :) S/Z

"From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of our proposed
pipeline cannot begin until a recognized government is in place that has the
confidence of governments, lenders and our company."

1998 UNOCAL CORPORATION TESTIMONY ON HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS:
  
RE: OIL AND GAS RESOURCES IN THE CENTRAL ASIAN AND CASPIAN REGION

TESTIMONY BY JOHN J. MARESCA
VICE PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
UNOCAL CORPORATION TO HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

FEBRUARY 12, 1998 - WASHINGTON, D.C.

URL: http://www.house.gov/international_relations/105th/ap/wsap212982.htm

More information about the reader-list mailing list