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Old 11-11-2008, 09:47 AM
lmno250 lmno250 is offline
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Icon19 Balkan Oil War

As rival pipeline project backers push their own plans as being the best on offer, funders are available.We look at two contenders and one established route. Balkan Oil Pipeline Projects; AMBO; Bourgas-Alexandroupolis; Druzhba pipeline; Russia; Croatia .,Greek Bulgaria, The AMBO project, avoiding sea entirely and crossing the Balkan Peninsula overland, will transit 35 M tons of oil annually, designed for EU countries and US. Direct economic gain will come from transiting fees, generation of VAT through participation in construction and maintenance of project sites and equipment, sharing in pipeline operational profits and cut-down negative ecological impact. The aim of the 894 kilometres (556 miles) long trans-Balkan pipeline is to bypass Turkish Straits in transportation of Russian and Caspian oil. The pipeline is expected to cost about US$1.5 billion and it will transport 750,000 barrels (119 t) of oil per day. There will be four pump stations, two in Bulgaria and one each in the Republic of Macedonia and Albania, constructed along the route. A pre-front-end engineering and design study (FEED) will be prepared by KBR.work already started in 2008. The pipeline is expected to be operational by 2011.Generation of regional competition in oil transfer from the Black Sea to international consumers, differentiation of energy supplies and provision of extra national security guarantees could be viewed as potential indirect gains. Bulgaria will, specifically, stand to gain further from the entry terminal that will most likely the rival Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline too. US private business interests underlie AMBO, while Russian interests are said to underlie Burgas- Alexandroupolis. Bulgaria has thus come to be the crossing point of two great powers’ interests, which could, too, be viewed as a dividend in itself. Construction of a trans-Balkan pipeline due to carry Russian oil to Greece via Bulgaria is expected to start later than planned, in Oct. 2009 and would come onstream in 2011, . After 14 years of negotiations and delays, the three countries agreed last year on building the 1.0 billion euro ($1.35 billion) pipeline which aims to bypass the traffic-clogged Turkish Bosphorus Straits. Construction of the project, due to pump 700,000 barrels per day of Russian crude a year into the Aegean port of Alexandroupolis from the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burgas, was previously expected to start in late 2008 or early 2009. "We expect to be ready to start construction around September-October 2009," "To finish the project would take about two years, which means launching the pipeline in 2011." The Dutch-registered Burgas-Alexandroupolis project company already pick a financial consultant between Societe Generale, Lazard Ltd and Citigroup, The global financial crisis and tighter credit conditions should not hinder efforts to raise funding for the project, which was initially estimated at between $600 million and $900 million, "The Russian party has said that if other funding is not found, they are ready to provide the money. But our wish is to have an investment project with banks providing the funding," He said it was hard to say how much exactly the pipeline would cost as not all project details were clear yet and the estimated cost remained at around 1 billion euros. Rising construction and raw material costs have made many energy projects more expensive worldwide. Some analysts say the price tag of Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline is likely to jump well above the currently estimated 1.5 billion euros. "It (the cost) also depends on when we will launch the project because the longer we procastinate, the higher the price would become due to rising inflation," Bulgaria was open to discussing selling parts of its 24.5 percent stake in the pipeline to interested parties such as U.S. oil major Chevron and Kazakhstan's state-owned KazMunaiGas but would only do it after the project was launched to maximize its profit. . Connecting the Bulgarian port on the Black Sea with the Greek port on the Aegean, it will provide for a transport route for Russian oil to the Mediterranean that would bypass Turkey and the Bosporus Straits, which Turkey controls.Russia had suggested this plan back in 1994, but it became the signature project of President Vladimir Putin as soon as he assumed power.What had stalled construction up until now was a disagreement among the three sides as to their respective shares. Russia had been insisting on holding a controlling share, while Greece and Bulgaria were holding out for equal shares for all three sides.Since last autumn Russia had redoubled its efforts. Costas Karamanlis and Sergei Stanishev, calls for the pipeline to stretch for some 280 kilometers, to carry 35 million tons of oil annually, rising in the future to 50 million tons.The project is scheduled to be completed in 2010 and will cost about a billion euros.The complicated scheme calls for Russian oil to be shipped across the Black Sea by tankers from Novorossiysk and Tuapse in Russia to Burgas in Bulgaria. The oil will then travel via the new pipeline to Alexandroupolis, and would then be loaded onto Greek tankers for further distribution to the customers.The two other partners would also realize considerable advantage. Greece and Bulgaria would secure their position as way stations for the shipment of the huge energy resources from Siberia, Central Asia and the Caspian basin to Europe, and should receive substantial transit fees.For a long time, the US government had been able to block the plan. On the very eve of the project’s signing, an American delegation headed by assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, Matthew Bryza, visited Athensis economically more effective to ship the Caspian oil to Europe via Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean through the large pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan. That route is 1.5 times shorter than from Tyumen, and a lot more effective than the traditional pipelines across Russia and Ukraine."The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline was constructed with American help so as to create an energy transport corridor bypassing Russia and thereby weaken Russia’s influence in the Caspian basin and in Central Asia.The pipeline started operating couple of years ago, but its profitability requires loading it with oil from other sources than Baku alone. To make a profit it must also be loaded with oil from Kazakhstan, perhaps also from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The total proven oil reserves in the Caspian region (Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) reach, according to some estimates, 15 billion tons, while the export from these countries could reach 130-150 million tons by the year 2010.If Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan) were to be persuaded to switch its oil export route from the present-day Russian corridors to the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline this would bring about huge political and economic changes in the huge territory of the Caucasus, Caspian Sea and Central Asia, and would significantly enhance the influence of the United States.Russia, and to a lesser extent China and Europe, are trying to prevent this. The European Union is on the one hand supporting Russia’s interests in the region against the US; on the other, it is trying to firm up its own sphere of influence. Thus, in late 2006 a vague agreement was signed in Astana between the European Union and the states of the Caspian and Black Sea region concerning some future cooperation in the energy sphere. The discussion centred on creating an integrated energy market tied to the interests of European consumers.These attempts are conducted within the framework of the so-called "European initiative for Central Asia," country.Europe is largely dependent on Russia for its energy resources. Russia provides 40 percent of the natural gas and a third of the oil consumed in Europe.The economic basis for Russia’s new geopolitical ambitions rests on its huge external trade surplus, which has risen in the past few years to about US$100 billion annually. Accumulation of the "oil money" has permitted the state to build up its gold reserves, to about $300 billion, while under Yeltsin these reserves sank to as low as $20 billion, and even lower. Simultaneously, the Russian government is putting some savings into the so-called Stabilization Fund, which now holds over $100 billion. The AMBO convention could potentially impact on certain outstanding disputes between Bulgaria and Russia vis-à-vis Burgas- Alexandroupolis oil pipeline. In the AMBO project, the parties to the convention are entitled to being part of operations and profits distribution on an equal footing, while with Burgas- Alexandroupolis, Russia, further to a over 50% stake, claims total control over entry infrastructure and all crude oil deliveries. Bulgaria’s call for a joint terminal for the two pipelines seems to conform better to the European Energy Charter, since a single terminal is far more beneficial in terms of ecological regulations. AMBO oil pipeline will inevitably reinforce cooperation between countries through which it runs- Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. Trans-European Transport Corridor No 8 seems to be increasingly finding its way on Southeast Europe agenda as another priority issue too. Corridor No 8 practically coincides with the layout of the AMBO oil pipeline. And others pipe line by Russian poles. A new war theater is ready and see the impact of this cold war on the world. Pakistan is soon going to involved a terrible situationwhen bosnia Dayton agreementing soon, is going to collapsed and a new war of terror is going to start ,and all EU and Amercian going to include Pakistan as X of evil see the articals collapsed of Dayton aggrement in Bosina, a new war between Moslem and Serbia is ready just matter of time
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