ANOTHER WEST-EAST FAULT LINE

On 25 May, crude rushed into 1100 mile long pipeline costing US$ 4 billions beginning from Azeri capital Baku on the Caspian Sea , to the Turkish port of Ceyhan in Eastern Mediterranean via Tbilisi ( Georgia), when the Presidents of Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan pulled orange levers , with US Energy Minister Samuel Bodman watching approvingly. It will take approximately 10 million barrels of crude to fill the entire pipeline, which when complete by the end of the year would ferry a million barrels of crude daily.

Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer called it the "Silk Road of the 21st century." US educated Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who was installed following a US, franchised 'Rose revolution' in end 2003 felt that the pipeline, by spurring investment and bringing US into the region, would undermine Russian influence. "Because of our geographical position, we've been in the center of attention for various empires," he said. "However, today Georgia is changing into a place where the largest energy companies in the world are trying to make investments."

"This pipeline first of all will help solve economic and social problems, but the role of the pipeline in strengthening peace and security in the region also is not small," said Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliev , whose late father Haidar Alivev can be said to be the founder and translator of his pipedream into a reality.

A letter from US President George W. Bush read out at the ceremony said that the pipeline "opens a new era in the Caspian Basin's development." "The United States has consistently supported ( the pipeline project) because we believe in the project's ability to bolster energy security, strengthen participating countries' energy diversity, enhance regional co-operation and expand international investment opportunities," it added.

After attending the victory celebrations in Moscow in May, President Bush visited Georgian capital Tbilisi , not so much to promote democracy, for , Saakashvili is proving to be another autocrat , but to promote US oil and strategic interests' .But a grenade thrown during the public meeting, which fortunately did not explode , only highlighted the security problems in the region.

The Caspian Sea basin is estimated to hold the world's third-largest reserves with Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan all claiming the Caspian's undersea wealth, on sharing   which an agreement has yet to be reached. However, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey look  to earn substantial revenue from the pipeline, through transit fees and royalties.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC) brushed aside shorter , cheaper and environmentally better routes via Armenia or Iran because of Russian influence in Armenia and tense US Iranian relations since the 1979 Khomeini revolution. BTC cuts through Azerbaijan in half from east to west, then Georgia from east to west, bypassing Georgia's secessionist Ajaria and traverses Turkey's Anatolian highlands from the northeast to the south on the Mediterranean ,next door to Incirlik airbase used by NATO forces. Both Azerbaijan and Georgia have serious internal problems, with the latter in conflict with its two break away provinces . In Azerbaijan BTC passes by its enclave Nagorno-Karabakh, now under Armenian control. Turkey still faces potential troublesome Kurds in the region from where the BTC traverses.

The BTC's major shareholders are BP (30.1%) and the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR (25%), followed by Unocal (US, 8.9%), Stat oil (Norway, 8.71%), Turkish Petroleum (6.53%), ENI (Italy, 5%), Total Fina Elf (France, 5%), Itochu (Japan, 3.4%), Conoco Phillips (US, 2.5%), Inpex (Japan, 2.5%) and Delta Hess (a joint venture of Saudi Delta Oil with American Amerada, 2.36%). BP has invested at least $15 billion in exploration, exploitation, pipeline construction and could be as powerful as Aramco once was in Saudi Arabia , with its chairman David Woodward ruling the roost and known in Baku as "the viceroy". 

On 24 May  President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, with the largest reserves in the Caspian Basin but who has been equivocal about  pumping out his country's oil via BTC, because of upsetting Washington or Moscow confirmed participation in the project with some caveats .'For us this route will be one of the main ways to supply world markets,' he said at a ceremony where he signed bilateral agreements with Azeri President Aliev. Nevertheless, Kazakhstan , with 40% Russian population is not putting all its eggs in one basket .Another pipeline to feed growing Chinese energy demand would be opened as early as December. Nazarbayev added that 'there is the possible variant of exporting oil through Iran in the future.'
 
BTC also ignored serious environmental concerns (expressed both in the Caucasus and in Europe), labor legislation, protests against the World Bank, and has taken 10 years for its completion.
 
Human Rights Watch issued a letter on 24 May to Azerbaijan's President, Aliev, denouncing the detention of Azeri opposition figures a week before the BTC ceremony. Police used force, beating participants with batons and detaining more than 100."The timing of this denial is especially regrettable," Human Rights Watch wrote in the letter. "Azerbaijan has shown that it can take a leading role internationally by committing itself to transparency principles in the extractive industries."