the Case of the Freeper FRiva Feva is under scrutiny - super-sleuths are welcomed
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Posted on 06/27/2002 10:33:14 AM PDT by a_Turk
WASHINGTON - Sixty-four mainly European non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are demanding that British Petroleum (BP) meet tough conditions on a proposed multibillion-dollar Caspian oil and gas pipeline before it receives any financing from public agencies.
Potential backers of the Baku-to-Ceyhan pipeline include the World Bank and national export credit agencies. BP, which leads a consortium of oil companies that includes Italy's Eni, Statoil of Norway, and California-based Unocal, has said it will need hundreds of millions of dollars in what its chief executive, Sir John Browne, referred to as "free public money" to help finance the construction of the US$3 billion pipeline.
"We believe that the use of 'free public money' cannot be justifiable unless the project is able to clearly demonstrate [the] positive local and regional development impacts associated with the project over the next 30 years, " the NGOs said in a letter on Tuesday.
The three-page letter and a longer memorandum were sent to World Bank president James Wolfensohn as well as the directors of the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the US Export Import Bank, the US Overseas Private Investment Corp and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
The proposed pipeline, which is to run some 1,800 kilometers from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, through Tbilisi and southeastern Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, has evoked great controversy since the idea was first put forward more than eight years ago.
Primarily for geopolitical reasons, the administration of former US president Bill Clinton strongly supported construction of the pipeline - at one point offering it $500 million in loan guarantees - as an alternative to shipping much of the 40 billion barrels of oil that are believed to lie under the Caspian area via more direct and cheaper pipeline routes through Iran and Russia.
Although US President George W Bush has promoted closer ties with Russia, his administration remains a strong backer of what is now referred to as the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) pipeline as a way of diminishing the chances that any hostile power could gain a chokehold over Caspian oil and depriving Iran of a valuable source of income.
The project has been assailed not only for its redundancy given existing routes, but also because it will travel through areas that have seen considerable political and ethnic conflict over the past decade.
In the early 1990s, Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a bloody war whose final resolution continues to elude US and Russian mediators. The proposed pipeline at one point runs little more than 10km from their common border. In March, Washington announced that it would soon provide military aid to Azerbaijan's navy, presumably to protect its claim to a sector of the Caspian Sea also claimed by Iran.
Georgia, meanwhile, remains home to at least three ethnic insurgencies, two of which have been backed by Russia at various times. The third, in the Pankisi Gorge close to Chechnya, has become a major target of Bush's war on terror, in whose name Washington last month sent more than 100 Special Operations Forces to train Georgia's army.
Finally, southeastern Turkey is the traditional homeland of that country's restive Kurdish population, which has a long history of armed resistance to Turkish rule.
"This pipeline would militarize a corridor running from the Caspian to the Mediterranean," said Kerim Yildiz of the London-based Kurdish Human Rights Project, one of the letter's signers. "This could threaten the fragile ceasefire in the Kurdish region through which the pipeline will pass."
But the security risk is only one of a series of concerns raised by the NGOs, some of which took part in a visit to villages along the pipeline route in Azerbaijan and Georgia this month.
"We are concerned that the pipeline will bring few benefits to poorer people and could exacerbate tensions in the region," said the groups, which are led by Friends of the Earth (FoE) International and a dozen of its national affiliates.
The NGO delegation, which included representatives from the United States, Italy, Britain, Ukraine and Georgia, found that the local people were very concerned about their future in light of BP's plans.
"The two biggest issues for the local people are getting jobs and energy from the project," said Carol Welch, deputy director of programs for the US branch of FoE. "BP has informed [them] that the project is going forward, but they've provided little or no information about its plans and impact. They are skeptical that [they] will see any benefit."
"Some people will lose their entire livelihoods because of the project, and it is likely that the companies' promises to bring jobs and local development will not be met," said Petre Holobil of CEE BankWatch in Prague. "Local people lack basic energy supplies, but the oil and gas from the Caspian will be piped straight to Western markets. Local communities will be bypassed completely."
The groups, which also include Novib of the Netherlands, Italy's Campaign to Reform the World Bank, and Germany's Urgewald, are demanding that more information about the project be made available to the local people who should be fully consulted and provided with assurances that they will be supplied affordable sources of energy before the project is approved.
The groups also express great concern over possible corruption surrounding the project and revenues earned by it, particularly in Azerbaijan, whose president, Haidar Aliev, has been given sole power to approve expenditures from a recently created Azeri Oil Fund. Any financial support from external public agencies should be strictly conditioned on putting in place credible oversight mechanisms guaranteeing transparency in the Fund's operations, the letter says.
Financing agencies should also assess the project's impact on climate change, said FoE International's Kate Hampton, who pointed out that the oil transported along the pipeline will contribute 185 million tons of carbon-dioxide emissions once burned. "If public money is used for this pipeline, we will all be subsidizing dirty energy, both here and elsewhere."
Welch said the letter marks the beginning of a broader campaign that will enlist other international NGOs, such as Greenpeace.
the Case of the Freeper FRiva Feva is under scrutiny - super-sleuths are welcomed
come resolve the way to yesterday's Target Post, you're not out of the running yet
win your registration fees to the FRive Las Vegas Conference if you dare
Why do journalists and politicians always consult with people who are absolutely ignorant, before formulating policy?
A two billion dollar pipeline is going to employ, without exageration, thousands of local workers. Thousands of local engineers and technicians. This is quite above and beyond any US or European supervision that may be involved. This is during the construction phase.
Hundreds of local contractors will participate. And there will be hundreds, perhaps even into the thousands, of permanent jobs operating and maintaining it after it is built. These will be good jobs for locals in some of the most remote areas in the world which will henceforth no longer be remote.
And once the pipeline is there, getting access to crude will easy for any industry that requires it; its easy to tap off of a pipeline once it is there. The idea that the pipeline "bypasses" the poor is silly. With the advent of the pipeline, the poor aren't that poor anymore.
Within a few short years of the pipeline's arrival in Ceyhan, there will almost certainly be further construction of process facilities, again built mostly by local contractors and local labor, with thousands of jobs resulting.
This is how small contractors and entrepeneurs come into existence. I have seen it before. The multinationals put up the money for these things, with US or European supervision at the very top, but the work is done by local workers, and local subcontractors. The permanent staff will be local. US, or Western European engineers don't want to live long term in Kurdistan, trust me.
Liar.
They're gearing up big time. I see a well orchestrated plan, paid by OPEC, using NGO fronts to selectively challenge, delay, even defeat competitive hydrocarbon resources. Saudi and Iranian "donations" to these orgs buy a lot of influence. Probably creating via the "NGO Divisions" of Public Relations firms specialty NGO front groups to fight this battle, invoking all the usual lefty arguments.
Precisely; that is exactly how it works. Opponents of a given policy often dare not expose themselves; you get the students, or the enviros, or anti-globalists, or any other available groups out there doing the dirty work. Your philanthropic donations keep them focused. Who could complain if it came out that the Saudis were "green", or "concerned about globalism"?
The pipeline does have strategic importance to us and would probably permanently end OPEC's ability to dominate the world oil markets.
What recent experience does Turkey have in building state of the art petroluem pipelines? I think it would be foolish to not have a major western oil company involved in the design and construction.
I think it would be foolish to not have a major western oil company involved in the design and construction.I agree, but this thing has been in "the works" for over 5 years.
They're gearing up big time. I see a well orchestrated plan, paid by OPEC, using NGO fronts to selectively challenge, delay, even defeat competitive hydrocarbon resources. Saudi and Iranian "donations" to these orgs buy a lot of influence. Probably creating via the "NGO Divisions" of Public Relations firms specialty NGO front groups to fight this battle, invoking all the usual lefty arguments.
Shermy, it makes one wonder how many petro $'s the Opecker Princes have paid to Da$$hole, Kerry, Boxer, ChiFi and other enviral elite senators to delay and disrupt competitive hydrocarbon sources.
If one was a cynic, one might suspect any senator who voted not to vote on drilling in Alaska to be an Opecker Tool.
Then a real cynic would wonder how many Opecker Petro $'s have flown into Greenpeace, Club Sierra and other enviral organizations to delay, block and sabatoge any competitive hydro carbon production since the days of Jimmy Carter.
By the way the Opecker Princes bought out Jimmy Carter decades ago if anyone is interested. I have links to show Mullah Carters allegiance to the Opecker Princes who bought him out.
This is utter B.S. and shows they will tell any lie. Turkey has an overabundance of energy, and is planning to export that excess which they already get. From Russia, Iran and elsewhere.
Yep.
The last thing any revolutionary movement wants is a population of contented folks who have no interest in being liberated from a system which leaves them alone while they peacefully raise their families in comfort and plenty.
The pipeline and the jobs and money that would flood into the area as a result is the PKK's worst nightmare, presuming any of them are still around these days.
There are legitimate concerns about corruption, particularly in Azerbaijan, but these are trivial to the general increase in the standard of living in that troubled area: "a rising tide raises all boats," and all that.
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