|
ZERKALO NEDELI: MOSCOW-ASIA TRANSIT…
The announcement from Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan, that his country prefers to transport oil through Russian territory became a sensation in world media. Hyperactivity of Vladimir Putin in Central Asia before and during the energy summit in Poland is a result of Russian domestic problems with gas production. And the unprecendent long-lasting tour of the Russian president in Central Asia is another proof of that. The Russian media will show Putin's visit to Central Asia as successful and triumphal, of course, but it would hardly hide all of Gazprom's problems in providing gas resources for export contracts and domestic consumption.
We must remember that at the meeting of the Gas Production Commission in May 2006 held in Moscow and at the 9th Geological Coordinating Conference public corporation Gazprom reported that in 2005 the company provided increased reserves, which exceeded the annual amount of gas production for the first time since 1993(!).
Such a long 12-year period of low increases in reserves affects and will affect production, even if starting in 2005 growth dynamics remain positive. The most considerable increase in reserves is expected in next ten years. This means that at least next 5 years will be the most complicated period for the monopoly, hence пїЅ the desperate but systematic attempts by Russia to keep the Central Asia region under its influence. Without this resource, Russia will fail to provide its contracted supplies of gas to the European market.
However, this is not the only reason for Russian activity in the Central Asian region. The other reason is high revenues from exporting energy resources. According to official information, in 2006 Russia received $139.4 billion from exporting oil and gas ($96.7 billion from exporting oil and $42.7 billion from gas). The export of arms, compared to oil and gas, brought in a miserable $6 billion. The difference is impressive. The sizes of earnings from oil and gas trading are too tempting for Russian political leaders and push them to use energy resources as an instrument of influence on countries that do not agree with Russian policy.
By increasing the EU's dependence on energy resources, the Russian Federation is trying to achieve its strategic goals: make EU policy toward Russian Federation more loyal, neutralize the European component of NATO and keep the post-Soviet infrastructure under Russian control.
The means, used for this purpose, is to block the development of energy transportation that is not controlled by Russia, turning most of the oil and gas transit from the Caspian region and Central Asia through Russia's territory. Among the most undesirable energy transportation projects are the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline and gas pipeline Nabukko, oil pipelines Odessa-Brody-Plotsk and Samsun-Djeyhan. At the same time, Russia is speeding up the development of existing and creating of new transportation routes under its control: the Blue Stream - 2 gas pipeline, the North European gas pipeline and Burgas-Aleksandrupolis oil pipeline.
This policy by the Russian Federation, as well as periodically shutting off oil and gas taps to some countries (to Latvia in 2003, to Belarus in 2004, to Ukraine in 2006, to Lithuania in 2006) caused a reaction from the side of the country-consumers of Russian energy resources and the European Union.
The Krakow summit of presidents of the Caspian-Black Sea-Baltic region is a reply by the country-consumers and transit-countries to the hegemonic policy of Russia in Europe. It is just a symbolic step of protest that does not have any systematically-substantial aspects. But according to the old Spanish proverb-there are no established ways because we have to pave the ways. And every way, as is well known, starts with the first step.
Russia predicted the possibility of consolidation. That's why there were projects that passed around the transit area from the Black Sea to the Baltics. But that is not enough. Ukraine with its gas transportation system is irreplaceable even if the Blue Stream-2 and the North European gas pipelines are built. An example for that is the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline which had to reduce Ukrainian transit. The Yamal pipe is working, but Ukrainian transit has even increased due to an increased amount of gas supply to EU.
At the same time, it is not an occasion to relax. During 16 years of independence, Ukraine has not started to solve the problem of overcoming its energy dependence. The Odessa-Brody oil pipeline, which had to start transporting Kazakh oil in 2004 according to an agreement between Ukrtransnafta and KazMunayGaz from July 17, 2003, instead started to transport Russian oil. So Ukraine proved to be an inconsistent and unreliable partner once again. Therefore, Kazakhstan prefers projects with minimal political risks and those that do not "tease the Russian bear". That's why Kazakhstan favors the Russian Burgas-Aleksandrupolis oil pipeline project, and Nazarbayev announced that Kazakhstan prefers to transport oil through the territory of Russia.
However the government of Kazakhstan can only manage directly the oil produced by the national oil production company and the shared oil produced by joint stock companies. The rest of the oil, which is the major portion, is managed by foreign companies. And they determine their own optimal logistics plans independently.
It is a diplomatic tradition of Eastern leaders to tell the guest things he wants to hear but do the things the Eastern leader wants to do. Kazakhstan has succeeded in it by joining the Baku-Tbilisi-Djeyhan project and building the first part of an oil pipeline to China. But it cannot be like Azerbaijan, which has achieved energy and infrastructural independence from the Russian Federation when exploitation of the Caspian fields started and the Baku-Tbilisi-Djeyhan oil pipeline and Baku-Tbilisi-Ersurum gas pipeline was built. The Kazakh way to energy independence, as well as the Turkmen way is more complicated than the Azerbaijani. Both countries are dependent on Russian infrastructure. The price-making policy is also determined by Gazprom. ThatпїЅs why the most desired dream of both Central Asian leaders is to receive independent access to the European market. They understand very well that only this, not Russian promises, can be the actual guarantee of political stability and business prosperity.
The consolidated efforts of European countries and the USA might play a major role here. A change in the government in Turkmenistan gave the EU a chance to correct its Central Asian strategy. These countries don't need the investment resources offered by the Europeans and Americans. They have it themselves and are ready to invest in Europe. Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan need a strategic three-component packet: exploitation of new gas fields by a consortium of European countries, construction of the Trans-Caspian oil pipeline and direct access for national producers to the EU market with opportunities to buy some assets. If this doesn't happen then Central Asian gas from perspective fields will be transported through Russia by the Caspian gas pipeline and will be also transported to China in time.
If the Russian Federation realizes the Caspian project and blocks Trans-Caspian gas, then a notorious "gas OPEC" will be created de-facto, which was initially planed in the format Russia + Central Asia. In this case, nothing will be able to stop Gazprom from setting a price of $500 per thousand of cubic meters of gas for European consumers.
Concerning Central Asia energy resources and new pipelines, Ukraine must be interested in cooperation with countries of the EU and European Commission. Its partnership with Poland is not enough here. All the more, Poland did not succeed in energy diplomacy in Kazakhstan, where it did not receive mining assets. The Polish government and top oil organizations could not set up favorable conditions for Kazakh companies that intended to buy assets in Poland. And Polish support for Kazakhstan as candidate for the chairmanship in OSCE looked quite absurd in that situation.
Considering the Ukrainian position, I remember the offensive, but relevant words of one Turkmen opposition leader: "Ukrainians as Papuans are not interested in national problems; they want to steal as much as possible". Watching the suicidal competition of the so-called political elite, Ukrainian partners started thinking of excluding attractive but high risk Ukrainian transit from their strategic projects. In a word, there is a lot of work to do for the Working group created according to the PresidentпїЅs Decree # 204 on March 14, 2007 to prepare proposals for the foreign policy of Ukraine in the energy security sphere.
Mykhailo HONCHAR (“NOMOS” center)
“Zerkalo Nedeli”, Ukraine’s International Social Political Weekly, 12 – 18 May, 2007
|
