Pipeline politics

Turkey is making slow progress toward winning approval for a Caspian oil export route from Baku, Azerbaijan, to its Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. It recently invited the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Georgia to a summit in Istanbul on the issue. Turkey would doubly benefit from an export line. In addition to the tariffs it would generate, a pipeline would help limit tanker traffic in the Bosporus. About 50,000 ships/year pass through the straits and 60% of them

March 16, 1998

3 min read

Patrick Crow
Washington, D.C.
[email protected]

Turkey is making slow progress toward winning approval for a Caspian oil export route from Baku, Azerbaijan, to its Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

It recently invited the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Georgia to a summit in Istanbul on the issue.

Turkey would doubly benefit from an export line. In addition to the tariffs it would generate, a pipeline would help limit tanker traffic in the Bosporus.

About 50,000 ships/year pass through the straits and 60% of them are tankers. There have been some minor accidents, but Turkish officials fear a catastrophe.

The straits split Istanbul, which has a population of 10 million, and 500,000 persons cross the Bosporus on ferries each day.

The tankers pass close to shore in a channel known for tricky currents. Ships must change course 12 times, including four turns of 45° or more.

Pilots are not required because the 1936 Montreux Convention declared the Bosporus to be international waters, and only a third of the ships use them.

In May, Turkey plans to ask the International Maritime Organization to require that tugboats escort tankers.

Options

Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem argued at the meeting against new Caspian export lines with Black Sea terminals, because they would only increase tanker traffic through the Bosporus.

Azerbaijan International Operating Co. (AIOC), a consortium of international oil companies, is due to decide by October on the principal export route for Caspian oil.

A pipeline from Baku to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk has been carrying limited exports since November. A second pipeline to the south, crossing Georgia, is due to be ready by the end of the year.

Cem told the ministers it would cost $2.5 billion to build a 1,730-km pipeline across Turkey. There are proposals for a gas export line using the same pipeline corridor.

Disputes

Cem proposed that future pipeline summits include Russia, the U.S., and "other interested countries."

Asked about the meeting, Russian Energy Minister Sergei Kiriyenko said Russia does not oppose the Baku-Ceyhan line, but said, "Economics should be purely the factor in deciding the oil pipeline route."

Separately, a foreign ministry spokesman explained another pipeline through Russian territory would be "more rational and economical" than the Baku-Ceyhan line.

Azerbaijan's deputy foreign minister, Aras Azimov, said the summit showed "Azerbaijan and Turkey, together with Georgia, favor the route to Ceyhan, and Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have plans for a pipeline under the Caspian Sea and on to Turkey via Azerbaijan and Georgia.

"The Baku-Ceyhan route is altogether the best route because it reaches the western market directly," he said.

To appease Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the ministers endorsed a study into the possibility of "pipelines connecting both shores of the Caspian Sea."

Turkey also tried to mediate the two nations' dispute over a southern Caspian oil field called Kyapaz by Azerbaijan and Serdar by Turkmenistan. The rift is seen as a barrier to a trans-Caspian oil line.

The ministers agreed to meet again later this year at Tbilisi, Georgia.