Posted on 08/08/2008 3:26:34 PM PDT by kronos77
(Reuters) - Georgia, where government forces fought pro-Russian separatists on Friday, is an energy highway to the West with two major pipelines routed via the capital Tbilisi.
Georgia and other transit states have an obligation to ensure the security of the pipelines, which follow similar routes and carry oil and gas from the Azeri section of the Caspian Sea.
From Tbilisi, the links head south into Turkey, away from the breakaway South Ossetia region, the scene of the fighting.
They are particularly valued by the European Union because they reduce dependency on Russian supplies and do not cross Russian territory.
But exports of gas and oil have been disrupted following a blast in Turkey earlier this week.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) claimed responsibility for the attack.
* THE BAKU-TBILISI-CEYHAN PIPELINE - The BP-led pipeline was opened in 2006.
It can pump up to one million bpd of Azeri crude along the 1,040 mile route to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. It is the first pipeline to carry large volumes of crude from the Caspian without going through Russia.
* The BAKU-TBILISI-ERZURUM PIPELINE - Also known as the Shakh-Deniz Pipeline, takes gas from the Shakh Deniz gasfield in the Caspian Sea to Erzurum in Turkey. It is jointly operated by BP and StatoilHydro. It began exports to Turkey in 2007 and will eventually be able to carry 20 billion cubic metres of gas.
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...
Washington praises democratic development in Georgia, delights in its contribution of combat troops for Iraq and acknowledges valuable intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation.
Moscow’s cooperation is vital to numerous Washington aims in Iran, North Korea and elsewhere.
“For all those reasons and the fact that Georgia has demonstrated that it is a close ally, we cannot simply sit by and say `so be it, what does South Ossetia mean to us?’” said Janusz Bugajski, director of the new European democracies project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Georgia as a whole means quite a lot.”
The pipeline that crosses Georgia can pump slightly more than 1 million barrels of crude oil per day, or more than 1 percent of the world’s daily crude output. The 1,100-mile pipeline carries oil from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea fields, estimated to hold the world’s third-largest reserves. Its potential vulnerability was already in the spotlight after it was sabotaged this week, apparently by Kurdish separatists.
Most of the oil is bound for Western Europe, where gas prices are even higher than the $4 and more a gallon that U.S. consumers are now paying. With only so much oil to go around, what the pipeline carries affects prices elsewhere. The United States also hopes it will be a model for other development projects that could have a more direct effect on the U.S. market.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/08/08/ap5305858.html
Do these energy highways feed Europe, or do they feed the US?
Drill Here, Drill Now!
When the prices fly through the roof it hurts us regardless on whether it feeds us or the Europeans. That being said, the pipeline feeds Europe through Turkey and is of importance for Israel also. BP has the major say in the pipeline project.
Lets say oil companies are allowed to drill all over the United States and off its shores and there is a crisis somewhere in the world that increases the world price of a barrel of oil. Do you think the oil companies in the U.S. are going to sell that barrel of oil at a cheaper price than the world price?
No - but it will be our profit, and we won’t be at their mercy for any oil.
AND,
our citizens will be working the drilling rigs,
and support companies, spending money, paying taxes..etc, etc.
Buying the houses in the areas where drilling is going on, improving the local economies..
A booming economy awaits if the idiot democRATS in congress just get out of the way.
from one of the articles linked to the article:
“Political analysts saw Georgia’s bid to re-take its rebel region of South Ossetia by force as a gamble by its leader that Ossetia and Abkhazia, another rebel region on the Black Sea.”
“He is in big danger of losing the cachet he built up for himself in being pro-Western and the restraint he has often shown in the face of provocation by Russia,” said James Nixey, of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.”
Western academics are idiots. Who cares about “cachet,” he’s about to lose his country to the new Russian Oil Mafia.
Iraq?
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