- The Americans seem to be making a bid to outflank the
Russians who will hold, what they call, the Oil and Gas Summit: Caspian
XXI late next week in Russia's Caspian capital of Astrakhan.
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- A similar conference in Islamabad around the same time
will discuss how to revive a leading American oil company's ambitious plans
to exploit and sell Central Asian fuel.
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- This is the Great Game of the new millennium just as
the Caspian Sea has been called the Persian Gulf of the future. The players
are the United States, Russia, the four littoral states (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan and Iran), Turkey and China.
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- America's objectives are to secure a reliable alternative
to west Asian fuel, minimise Russian influence over Caspian oil, encourage
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to move closer to the west, block
China's entry into Central Asia, and prevent Iran from playing a lead role.
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- It is the world's biggest consumer of fuel with a daily
consumption of 17 million barrels. Since domestic production accounts for
only 2 per cent of the oil and 3 per cent of the gas America devours, it
is heavily dependent on west Asia and haunted by the prospect of another
regional conflict or embargo holding up supplies.
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- Saudi Arabia, which provides a quarter of America's needs,
is, generally speaking, a loyal partner. But Saudi help for Palestinian
fighters, and Crown Prince Abdallah's initiative to persuade Israel to
evacuate the West Bank warn that Riyadh may not always be America's west
Asian surrogate.
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- The Caspian's wealth is regarded as larger than the combined
deposits of Alaska and the North Sea. The American Heritage Foundation
estimated it at 24 billion barrels. According to John J Maresca, international
vice-president of the American oil giant, Unocal, there are 236 trillion
cubic feet of proven gas and more than 60 billion barrels of crude.
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- Unocal took the initiative in setting up a conglomerate
called CentGas (Central Asia Gas) to build two major pipelines to transport
Turkmen gas and oil through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India.
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- A 1,040-mile pipeline would convey a million barrels
of oil a day from Charjou to a Pakistani port on the Arabian Sea. The shorter
790-mile pipeline was for a trillion cubic feet of gas from Dauletabad,
also in Turkmenistan, to India, which Unocal regarded as the market of
the future.
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- Sponsors like Henry Kissinger, Lawrence A Eagleburger,
Samuel R Berger, Richard Armitage, Senator Howard Baker, Ambassador Robert
Oakley and Zbigniew Brzezinski suggested that Unocal's dealings with the
Taliban regime in Kabul enjoyed Washington's full blessings.
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- CentGas's first problem was that the Taliban's global
isolation ruled out multilateral funding. Second, the treatment of Afghan
women roused the antipathy of powerful American lobbies. Finally, the attack
on American embassies in east Africa brought the Taliban into direct confrontation
with the US. A disappointed Unocal withdrew from CentGas.
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- But the five littoral countries cannot neglect the Caspian's
resources. Russia needs revenue; the Central Asian republics expect royalties
and pipeline fees to make them independent of Moscow. Iran and Turkey hope
to extend their influence in this Islamic heartland, and China could provide
an alternative route to the Pacific.
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- Hence, last month's summit conference of littoral nations
in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat to decide on a formula to share Caspian
resources. One proposal was for five equal shares; another that each country's
coastline should determine entitlement.
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- Both were rejected, and it was tentatively decided to
hold another summit in Teheran. Meanwhile, Iran's President Mohammad Khatami
has visited Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, warning his hosts that
the US would be the gainer if regional governments do not stand together.
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- President Vladimir Putin agrees. He has ordered Admiral
Vladimir Kuroyedov, commander-in-chief of the Russian navy, to involve
his country's Caspian fleet in staging military exercises because "we
have had no opportunity to test it in a decade", while the Russian
ambassador to Iran, Alexander Maryasov, can have had only the US in mind
when he advised "some politicians" not "to seek military
aid from non-littoral states in order to strengthen their naval forces
in the Caspian".
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- He added that Russia "categorically opposes any
outside military presence in the Caspian" as a development that "could
entail further destabilisation".
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- Maryasov was probably warning Turkmenistan's President
Saparmurad Niyazov, who played a key role in setting up CentGas and will
attend the Islamabad summit with Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai and, of course,
Pervez Musharraf.
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- This could be the Bush administration's trump card. Operation
Enduring Freedom and Washington's increasing belligerence towards Iraq
may not be unconnected with oil.
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- The Clinton administration sponsored two pipelines that
would cut out Russia. The Bush family understands oil even better. George
W Bush used to drill in Texas. His father, who persuaded Saudi Arabia to
foot the bill for Operation Desert Storm, was an oil millionaire. They
would appreciate the significance of Lord Wavell's prediction that "the
next great struggle for world power" would be over Asia's oil reserves.
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- TAILPIECE: Two-thirds of the world's sturgeon is also
to be found in the Caspian Sea, and though fishing is controlled, poaching
is said to amount to between five and 10 times the size of the official
catch. And no wonder, for this is a lucrative business. As a famous schoolboy
doggerel has it:
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- "Caviar comes from the virgin sturgeon. The virgin
sturgeon is a very fine fish. The virgin sturgeon needs no urging, that's
why caviar is such a rare dish."
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