Lots of players here..Russia prime..Turkey too..in that the Turks have a big slice in oil/gas pipelines ,terminals,and the Euro Insurance thingy.
Caspian oil/gas is not good quality..it requires cleaning..and is costly.
U.S. oil firms want the low sulphur oil of Iraq and the Persian gulf..content to build pipelines via consortium with the new Stans...with a view of providing the Orient for its new thirst.
Turkey:
Clearly they are not waffling like they have some internal thing to work out..bluntly...Europe and Russia are diverting Turkeys attention.
Europe is chaffing at the words of the U.S of recent...they are getting even by stroking the Turks...who are throwing a wrench in things.
Turkey is in a vulnerable spot however...Russia is by no means able to foot the money needed to keep Caspian chugging along...Russia does the dance still of buying U.S. Dollars and buying into the Euro.
Turkey may be intoxicated with its new power and friends,...she should also consider her fate..which could easily become a Jobe Ash heap like Iran..who paid big time for screwing up the oil/military contracts of the past....
Iran......still staggering in third world oblivion.
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Project to build gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey is launched February 28, 2003 Baku, February 28, 2003. (CNA). The international partners working to build a natural gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey gave the US$3.2 billion project the go-ahead on Thursday. When complete, the project will pump an estimated 8.4 billion cubic meters (296.61 billion cubic feet) of gas annually from the Shah Deniz field through Baku and the Georgian capital Tbilisi to Erzurum in Turkey. Construction gets underway next year, and the first gas deliveries are expected in 2006. "Another milestone has been achieved," Medjid Kerimov, Azerbaijan's minister of fuel and energy, said at the official ceremony in Baku, according to a press statement. "The scale of the project means that Azerbaijan is now firmly positioned to become a major gas exporter." Natig Aliev, president of Azerbaijan's state-owned oil company, said the project will help bring this impoverished region "economic prosperity and stability." BP PLC will operate the pipeline. Other participants are Norway's Statoil, Azerbaijan's state oil company and France's TotalFinaElf. The project calls for a drilling platform, five underwater wells, two underwater pipelines, aboveground pipelines, and an onshore processing terminal. A Russian diplomat this week expressed concern about the environmental impact of pipelines along the bottom of the Caspian, but there was no indication that Russian complaints would have any direct effect on the project.
Fears mar launch of BP-Statoil energy project February 28, 2003 AN ENERGY project linking gasfields in the Caspian Sea with Europe was launched yesterday by BP and Statoil, of Norway. But the $3.2 billion (£2 billion) investment is dogged by concerns that Turkey, the main buyer for the fuel, will not need the gas when it comes on stream in 2006. Statoil, which has taken on the role of commercial operator for the Shah Deniz gas project, said that contracts for gas sales had been signed with Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. A pipeline will stretch 690km from the Shah Deniz gasfield offshore from Baku to Erzurum in eastern Turkey where it will join the gas grid operated by Botas, Turkey’s state gas company. Deliveries of gas are expected from early 2006 but analysts doubt that there is a market for the fuel because the economy is stagnating and Turkey has bought too much gas. A spokesman for Statoil agreed that demand was an issue. “At the end of the day it looks like there will be a gas surplus but we don’t think we will have a problem because our gas is priced very competitively.” Turkey recently renegotiated a contract to buy gas from Russia, securing a 9 per cent price reduction for the fuel, which reaches Turkey through the recently completed Blue Stream pipeline under the Black Sea. Turkey has also agreed to buy gas from Iran and liquefied gas from Nigeria but the Government has twice lowered its forecasts of an increase in demand for the fuel. Botas has plans to re-export gas through a planned pipeline to Greece and another line running north to Austria but these projects are at very early stages of planning. BP and Statoil each have a quarter share in the gasfield and the South Caucasus pipeline, which will follow the route of the controversial Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.