TAPI pipeline deal set for December

http://www.pennenergy.com/index/petroleum/display/2307445781/articles/oil-gas-financial-journal/e-__p/conventional/petrochina-discovers.html

19 10 2010

[Look for any pipeline agreement to build north of original route through southern Afghanistan. The Afghan partition plan promoted by India and US diplomat Burns will make such a route feasible in the near future, if real Taliban infiltration into the North can be stopped in its tracks...]

GENEVA, Switzerland, — A deal for a multilateral pipeline from Turkmenistan to India will enter into force in December, the deputy foreign minister of Afghanistan said.

The governments of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan are putting the final touches on agreements for a 1,043-mile natural gas pipeline. The pipeline would move natural gas from the Dauletabad field in Turkmenistan, which holds more than 40 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Eklil Ahmad Hakimi, the deputy foreign minister of Afghanistan, said all four sides have signed a memorandum of understanding on the $7 billion gas pipeline.

“And it will be operationalized by their leaders when they meet in December,” he was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying.

He added that building the pipeline through his country would provide jobs for around 20,000 people.

New Delhi says security issues for the portion of the pipeline to cross Afghanistan and Pakistan were concerns for the Indian government.

The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline is a Western-backed rival to an Iranian pipeline from the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf. A feasibility study for TAPI was financed by the Asian Development Bank in 2005.

The minister gave his comments during a meeting on Asian cooperation in Geneva, Switzerland....

Why is it that Democrat party hacks only emphasized the Unocal story line for their own benefit while disregarding the larger picture - including what all of the pipelines meant to Turkey and Europe? Answer: Because they got paid!

S M O K I N G G U N S . . . . .


A GREAT GAME NO MORE:
OIL, GAS AND STABILITY
IN THE CASPIAN SEA REGION

REGION OF THE FUTURE: THE CASPIAN SEA....

German Interests and European Politics in the Trans-
Caucasian and Central Asian Republics
Policy Paper of the SPD Parliamentary Group in the German
Bundestag
Presented by Gernot Erler
in cooperation with
Friedemann Müller

A GREAT GAME NO MORE: OIL, GAS AND STABILITY IN THE CASPIAN SEA REGION

Published in 1999 by
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Washington Office
1155 15th Street, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
ã Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 1999
Region of the Future: The Caspian Sea
Reprinted in 1999 from the original with permission from
SPD-Bundestagsfraktion
Unter den Linden 50
11011 Berlin
ã SPD Bundestagsfraktion 1998

1998!!!!

-------------

QUOTES:

There are principally three options where pipelines have to be constructed to reach a potential significant demand; firstly, through Iran to Turkey and Europe; secondly, through
Afghanistan (or Iran) to Pakistan and the Indian sub-continent; and thirdly, to China and the Pacific Ocean. None of these options is easily realized. If such a construction could be completed and the demand would be there (which is uncertain in the case of a pipeline
to Europe) depending on the price, Turkmenistan alone might produce 200 billion cu m, which could make this country with its four million inhabitants rather rich.
For Europe’s natural gas demand, an additional supplier on the natural gas market would be welcome in addition to the considerable resources located mainly in Norway, the
Netherlands and Great Britain and the traditional suppliers, Russia and Algeria. In the 10 year 2000 the European Union (EU) has already covered its demand of 406 billion cu m
by indigenous production and contracted imports. In 2010 a not yet contracted supply of 43 billion cu m (out of an estimated demand of 474 billion cu m) is to be met. In 2020 this uncovered share amounts to 154 billion cu m (estimated demand 510 billion cu m).3
There are, however, other options for Europe’s supply, like additional contracts with Russia and Norway, LNG from Nigeria or from natural gas rich Middle East countries. Japan might prefer to get natural gas from geographically close Sakhalin. For China and the Indian sub-continent, Caspian natural gas might, however, be of great interest.

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Pakistan and India are also growing markets and many people are familiar with the plan being put forth by UNOCAL to build a pipeline from Turkmenistan to those markets. This project has not moved ahead quickly so far because of the political situation in Afghanistan. Even if we were to set that issue aside, the project could work, but it is not crucial to meeting the gas needs of Pakistan or India. Iran, Qatar, which has gas reserves on the scale of the entire Caspian, and Oman are closer to South Asia and they have their own substantial gas reserves and their own pipeline plans.

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Whether it is Chechnya or Nagorno-Karabakh or Afghanistan, or the Kurdish crisis in eastern Antalya; all these are major
unresolved conflicts that are taking place exactly in the regions where there are dreams of building pipelines and establishing communication routes.

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!!!

The problem with the Baku strategy is that, at the moment, there is no American economic or military component.

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That inevitably leads to questions about extending the role, or
mandate, of the United Sates into the Caspian. Presumably it would be an issue into which the NATO partners would be drawn. There is an increasing amount of discussion about NATO’s out-of-area missions and roles. A role in the Caspian and the Caucuses is not as absurd as it might seem these days, particularly if the strategy compels one to think in these terms.

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One of the fascinating nuances now of Iranian policy is that, one of the issues they are most bitter about, (not just the government buy everyday citizens) is the Gingrich 20 million dollar contingency fund to set up a covert program to destabilize the regime.

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Fifty million ECU were allocated to this program for the period 1996-1999. In that time, many concrete projects have been implemented, including...The assessment of the prospects for enhancing the transport of hydrocarbons from the Caspian Basin and Central Asia to European markets...

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The appropriate metaphor for the politics of Caspian energy is therefore not imperial rivalry; the illuminating comparison is not with the Anglo-Russian Great Game of the nineteenth
century or the scramble for Africa at the end of that century. The late-twentieth century scramble for oil wealth bears a far closer resemblance to a large business deal put together by lawyers, executives and bankers. All wish to maximize their own individual shares, but all need a deal of some kind or nobody gets anything. And, in fact, the exploitation of Caspian Basin energy riches requires, and involves, a series of just such deals....