> Stunningly, I once heard an American journalist who covered >Russia defend the oligarchs by saying that "at least they made >things work."
While the Western powers seem determined to undermine Russian positions economically and politically? e.g. Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline as the following post "Pipeline breaks Russia grip on Caspian oil" shows.
Ulhas
The Asian Age
26 May 2005
Pipeline breaks Russia grip on Caspian oil
- By Simon Ostrovsky
Baku, May 25 : A major new US-backed pipeline to bring oil directly from the Caspian Sea to Western markets and break Russia's long-time grip on vast energy resources from Central Asia to Turkey was formally launched on Wednesday in a ceremony attended by presidents and dignitaries.
"Some did not believe in the realisation of this project, some tried to disrupt it, but the support of the United States and the activity of BP helped realise the project," Azeri President, Ilham Aliyev said at the ceremony to inaugurate the four-billion-dollar initiative.
The Presidents of Turkey, Armenia, Georgia and Kazakhstan were joined by other VIPs including US energy secretary Samuel Bodman and the head of British energy giant BP, John Browne, for the formal launch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's special representative for international energy cooperation, Igor Yusufov, had been expected to attend the event. A Kremlin spokesman said in Moscow that he had been forced to cancel his planned trip to Baku at the last minute due to illness. Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a declaration committing some of his country's vast Caspian oil reserves to transport through the pipeline just prior to the ceremony extending the BTC's life expectancy past 2010, when Azeri oil production is expected to slump.
"The East-West energy corridor plays an important security role in the region and it's clear that economic growth and stability would not be possible without the export of oil," Turkey's President Ahmet Necdetsezer said at the opening.
He said the pipeline would take pressure off Turkey's tanker-clogged Bosphorus Straits that link the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, another major maritime transport route for oil.
Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili stressed the geopolitical changes afoot in the region after the fall of the Soviet Union.
"After the fall of a big empire we want sources of hydrocarbons to be protected and provide for stability of their transport," he said.
The 1,770 kilometre long pipeline will transform the Caucasus and Turkey into an energy bridge between the Caspian and the rest of the world and has shifted geo-strategic alliances in the Caucasus region and Central Asia.
But the presence of senior officials from the United States and other countries at Wednesday's ceremonies was tainted by a controversy as Azeri authorities continued to hold Opposition members detained in connection with the pipeline's opening. The police badly beat and arrested scores of people attending a peaceful rally last Saturday as part of a wider opposition crackdown. Authorities justified their actions on grounds that the rally was held too close to the pipeline opening ceremonies, a claim questioned by Western officials.
Baku was the sight of some of the first industrially developed oil fields in the world at the beginning of the 20th century.
The British oil giant BP holds a leading 30 per cent stake in the consortium running the pipeline. Other consortium members include Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR, Amerada Hess, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Inpex, Itochu, Statoil, Total, TPAO and Unocal.
SOCAR president Natik Aliyev called the pipeline, which is expected to become a major competitor to traditional export routes for Caspian oil that pass through Russia, the "realisation" of a national dream on Wednesday.
(AFP)