| Except it's bad The Caspian region is one of the main priorities of Russian foreign policy in terms of not only its energy resources, but also national security. This statement by the head of the Caspian working group at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Andrei Urnov, began yesterday the final day of the CIS oil and gas summit in London. Perhaps Moscow's interest in the region explains the surprising fact that only the Russian delegation at the summit was represented at such a high level, headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Viktor Kalyuzhny, the special representative of the Russian President for the Caspian Sea.
The expected ministers and oligarchs from Kazakhstan and especially from Turkmenistan did not appear in the British capital. The envoys of this sunny country rich in hydrocarbons do not travel that far without Turkmenbashi himself. But after Urnov, the Deputy Minister of Oil of Iran, Mr. Nejad, spoke. Showing colorful slides of Iranian landscapes with a backdrop of pipes, ships and drilling rigs, he urged summit participants to make sure that his country will become a gateway for Caspian oil and gas to world markets in the coming years. Basically, this will be carried out, according to him, on the basis of substitution schemes: oil coming to the north of the country from Kazakhstan (this is already happening in small volumes), Turkmenistan and even Russia in the south of Iran, in the ports of the Persian Gulf, will be compensated by supplies of Iranian oil. However, this will happen if Tehran manages to overcome the difficulties associated with the sanctions imposed by the US administration on such cooperation with Iran of American oil companies. Such problems now exist in Kazakhstan, where American companies also produce oil, some of which are suspected by Washington of violating sanctions.
But the Iranian official was not asked any uncomfortable questions, and he himself did not talk about these nuances. In general, we must pay tribute, the Iranians do not miss almost a single international meeting where they could remind about their country and its powerful potential with the second largest reserves of natural gas in the world after Russia.
The Russian representative, Mr. Urnov, honestly admitted that the Caspian settlement process is going well, with the exception of the possibility of reaching a consensus among the five littoral countries on the legal status of the Caspian Sea. Among the achievements of this process, Mr. Urnov included agreements between Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan on dividing the bottom of the northern part of the Caspian Sea, which made it possible to begin the process of resource development there. Russia proposed a compromise formula to its Caspian partners - “we share the bottom, we share the water,” said Mr. Urnov, and believes that it is necessary to agree on other issues in parallel: on the conservation of biological resources, joint fishing and shipping. Some of the agreements on these problems have practically been prepared, Mr. Urnov said, but some partners believe that it is necessary to first adopt a legal convention and then sign the remaining documents. The ambassador diplomatically did not name these countries, but it is by no means a secret that this is Turkmenistan’s position. Mr. Urnov even refused to answer the question of whom he had in mind, citing an agreement not to disclose the details of the negotiations.
But he was more frank when he spoke about the problem that has been tearing apart Russian departments for a long time: whether to consider the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) a natural Russian monopoly or not. The Federal Energy Commission (FEC), for example, based on internal Russian legislation, is inclined to classify CPC as a monopoly. And this will lead to the state setting tariffs for pumping oil through this pipe. However, the CPC is the first private trunk pipeline on Russian territory, and the government pledged back in 1995 not to interfere in the tariff policy of the consortium, in which Russia, together with Kazakhstan, as states, own only a quarter of the shares.
Andrei Urnov stated on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Russian government that the obligations given to the private owners of the consortium must be respected. Deputy Foreign Minister Viktor Kalyuzhny, in a conversation with a correspondent of the Vremya Novostey newspaper, confirmed the importance of this statement made in London. Moscow is once again sending a signal to foreign investors: don’t worry, we do not intend to change the adopted rules.
Yesterday's Caspian discussion, which began two days ago when Mr. Kalyuzhny expressed doubts about the reliability of BP as a partner in the Russian gas market, was revived through his efforts. Victor Kalyuzhny asked Mr. Green, an official from the US State Department dealing with Caspian energy resources who spoke at the summit, to answer why Washington, while welcoming the policy of invariance of Caspian oil routes, does not put pressure on Turkey, which is preventing the passage of tankers with CPC oil through the Bosphorus, since it is present in the consortium and American capital?
Mr. Green answered only the third time, citing the fact that he did not understand the question. However, it turned out to be impossible to understand anything from his answer: neither in English nor translated into Russian. Arkady DUBNOV, London |
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