Posted on 12/17/2006 9:10:25 AM PST by Kitten Festival
Relatively quietly, and with tantalizingly few details available, Israel and Turkey have reached agreement on construction of a strategic pipeline linking the Black Sea and Red Sea, traversing Israel to eventually deliver energy resources to Far Eastern markets. If plans proceed to construction and operation, it will represent a major step forward for Israel, and will reinforce Turkey's moderating power among Muslim nations.
Pipelines matter in the balance of world power. A lot. Their importance goes virtually unnoticed by the public, for they are not glamorous and they do not require large numbers of workers once they are completed. But let Russia, for instance, turn off the flow of natural gas to Ukraine in the dead of winter, and a crisis quickly develops for Ukrainians. Russia sees its control of energy resources as an instrument of national power, and is increasingly aggressive in its use.
The Caspian region contains huge oil reserves already discovered and "proven." It is believed that far more oil and gas lies in wait, ready to be discovered and developed. Some believe the region may even surpass the Persian Gulf in its potential. But getting the oil and gas to market is still a challenge. Russia controls most practical overland routes. With one exception.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC) was built connecting the region with Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, where oil could be loaded onto large tankers for transport to European markets. Tanker traffic through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, lining the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, is already over 5000 movements per year, and cannot be safely expanded. Construction of this pipeline represented a major victory for American policy objectives....
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I suspect the lifetime of such a pipeline would would be about the same as a gnat's half-life. Those who hate Israel would sabotage that pipeline faster than we can say kitty-litter.
The article says the pipeline would run underwater from Turkey to Israel then overland to the Red Sea port. That route would mean it is fairly secure and would cut huge amounts of transit time for tankers on their way to the far east with this oil.
red sea port? you mean the northern tip of the gulf of aqaba, right between egypt and jordan, with saudi just a bit further down on the east?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1480000/images/_1481960_gulf_of_aqaba3.gif
There are two problems as I see it, and I do support the idea of the pipeline. I still see sabotage as an issue. I also see Israel's growing dependence on water and power from this pipeline, to open it up to blackmail or severe shortages as dependence grows and service interruption looms.
Correct. The article specifies Eilat as the port.
I don't believe anything was said about water flowing through the pipeline.
The proposed pipeline would be a multi-tasker, carrying conduits for oil, gas, water, electricity, and possibly fiber-optic cable. Turkey has relatively abundant water resources, while Israel, Jordan, Syria, and other neighbors are rather parched. Water resource control is a major underlying dynamic of conflict between Israel and its neighbors.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2006/12/pipeline_power_for_israel.html
Oops. Missed that even though I skimmed the article. Thanks for the correction.
The proposed pipeline would be a multi-tasker, carrying conduits for oil, gas, water, electricity, and possibly fiber-optic cable.
...didn't realize someone had already made mention of this.
Yep, somehow I missed that when I read the article.
No problem... I may have done that once or twice myself. :-o
conduits for oil, gas, water, electricity, and possibly fiber-optic cable.
quite a dream eh?
pipe dreams.....then there's the 2 countries whose ox will be gored the most, saudi and iran; saudi and its terrorists on one end with friendlies territory to operate in (egypt, jordan), and the iran/hezbollahs hanging out in Lebanon at the other end.
But somebodys stock will spike tomorrow morning, bet me.
And perhaps others to drop...
The ox being gored is Russia's. I think the security issues are greater from that end if Russia finds a way to regain control of those oil fields.
This is really interesting -- the Turks in the 1990s (or perhaps it was even earlier) suggested a "Peace Pipeline" to distribute (and sell) water throughout the Middle East, including Israel, but no one (particularly the Syrians, through whose territory the pipeline would have gone) was interested per se.
The Turks also want to build a water pipeline to the Turkish zone of Cyprus. Water is an abundant resource in Turkey, and it is in short supply in the rapidly overpopulating Arab world, much of which is desert. Israel was interested in an undersea version of the pipeline, to supply water to its agriculturists, and to meet the terms of its 1994 treaty with Jordan.
Anyway, this new pipeline project is actually four pipelines in one -- crude oil, natural gas, water, and electricity (an electrical trunkline inside a pipeline). My view is that Gaza should be included in this, because a steady water supply in Gaza would pull Arabs ("Palestinians") out of the so-called West Bank, provided of course that they could get land of their own.
I expect this project will subsume the pipeline-to-Cyprus plan, such that both are completed. I also think that the Turks will find it difficult to engineer this (the pipelines are to be anchored to the seabed) without Israeli participation. Should be an interesting ten years, eh?
..this new pipeline project is actually four pipelines in one -- crude oil, natural gas, water, and electricity (an electrical trunkline inside a pipeline)."
Links:
Turkey, Israel to study feasibility of $4 billion energy pipeline
Pipeline project linking Black and Red Seas
Tehran has reduced the supplies of gas to Turkey over a dispute over pricing, but it's no problem.
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