Another "gas troika"

The presidents of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Turkey will discuss the prospects of the Trans-Caspian Pipe

Tonight, for the first time in history, the presidents of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Turkey will gather in the city of Turkmenbashi on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Although neither side openly names the “common cause” that forced the leaders of the three countries to gather in the former Soviet Krasnovodsk, it is clear to everyone that they will talk about the prospects for the construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline . Official trilateral negotiations on cooperation in the energy sector are scheduled for tomorrow, and guests from Baku and Ankara Ilham Aliyev and Abdullah Gul, apparently, will try to convince Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to finally guarantee gas supplies to Europe in transit through these countries. Of course, few people will undertake to predict the outcome of the meeting now. Too many political and speculative interests are intertwined around gas from the Caspian region. Much more than the physical volumes of blue fuel and economic calculations for its extraction, transportation and marketing.

However, exactly a year and a half ago, in the same place, another “troika” of leaders - Berdimuhamedov, Putin and Nazarbayev - even signed a declaration on the construction of the Caspian gas pipeline . However, this project never received any practical progress. Despite Moscow's enormous political efforts, the matter was limited to the formalization of the declaration into the text of an intergovernmental agreement at the end of last year. Therefore, even the appearance this weekend of some joint documents between Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Turkey will not be a guarantee for the implementation of the Trans-Caspian Sea. Moreover, the expected resource base for filling both gas pipelines is practically unexplored deposits in the Turkmen part of the Caspian Sea shelf (not to mention the fact that Ashgabat does not yet have agreements on seabed delimitation with its neighbors represented by Kazakhstan, Iran and Azerbaijan).

A joint declaration of intent or official statements on the development of cooperation in the field of gas supplies, if presented in Turkmenbashi, will be a logical intermediate result of the intensification of the European Commission and the United States in promoting the Southern Gas Corridor and steps taken halfway by the authorities of Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey. Thus, at the end of September, at the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York, Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov announced President Berdimuhamedov’s initiative to adopt special documents guaranteeing the safety of international pipelines . And already at the end of October the document was submitted for discussion to a committee of an international organization. At the same time, the desire to become co-authors of the Turkmen initiative was expressed by Turkey, Austria (which is the initiator and end point of Nabucco), Afghanistan and Pakistan (which are considering the possibility of building a Trans-Afghan gas pipeline from Turkmenistan), as well as all CIS states, except Russia and Moldova.

In the interval between these events, a representative of the British auditing company Gaffney, Cline & Associates, at a meeting of the government of Turkmenistan, presented an assessment of the reserves of two fields, South Yolotan/Osman and Yashlar. According to the conclusion of this company, commissioned by Turkmengeology, the optimal reserves according to the gas in place classification for South Yolotani/Osman are 6 trillion cubic meters, and for Yashlar - 600 billion cubic meters. The publication of these data inspired the Europeans even more. In early November, the European Commissioner for Energy went to Baku and Ankara on a tour that he himself called “in support of Nabucco.” As the Vremya Novostey newspaper already wrote, there he presented Brussels’ idea of ​​creating a special company, the Caspian Development Company, which would take up the project of organizing the supply of Turkmen gas through Azerbaijan to Turkey and further via Nabucco to Europe. A little later, this proposal was included in the Strategic Energy Review published by the European Commission. And US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, arriving at an energy conference in Baku, said that he fully supports the Trans-Caspian project and offers to use the services of American specialists and consultants.

The apogee of activity was the four-day visit of a huge Turkmen delegation (about 140 people) led by Berdimuhamedov to Germany and Austria. As it became known after negotiations in Vienna, Turkmenistan and Austria are preparing an intergovernmental agreement on the mutual protection of investments, which could open the way for European companies to work in the Turkmen gas complex (where there are problems with investments in the development of production and infrastructure). Before the meeting in Turkmenbashi, Ilham Aliyev managed to travel to Turkey , where he spoke, among other things, about gas transit, and Italy, which also claims to import Azerbaijani blue fuel. And Azerbaijani Energy Minister Natig Aliyev visited Vienna at the beginning of the week, where he also discussed the prospects for Turkmenistan’s involvement in joint gas projects.

But until the emergence of specific production projects, it is premature to talk about real progress in creating a route for exporting Turkmen gas to Europe bypassing Russia. Essentially, the work here has not even begun, and there are an incredible number of problem points, ranging from coordinating the interests and capabilities of suppliers, transit countries and consumers to the technical problems of laying a pipe across the undivided Caspian Sea, expanding the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline system (currently it is designed for 20 billion cubic meters, of which about a quarter has already been loaded, and Nabucco is going to be designed based on supplies of 30 billion cubic meters per year).

However, Mr. Berdymukhamedov also has more speculative interests. Namely, the creation of a profitable negotiation platform before the visit of the head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, who still has a very difficult trip to Ashgabat in December (and, most likely, more than one). We must pay tribute to the Turkmen authorities; they skillfully bring the peak of foreign policy activity of potential contenders for gas resources to the time of decisive negotiations with the Russian Gazprom on the price and volumes of gas supplies next year. Despite the fact that Ashgabat still does not have alternative export options (the meager supplies to Iran do not count), Turkmen gas regularly rose in price from $44 per thousand cubic meters in 2005 to $150 in the second half of 2008. Gazprom still does not have specific agreements with Turkmenistan for 2009 , although it has managed to agree to the transition from January 1 to prices linked to the European market . True, the parties agreed in principle to switch to a price formula back in the spring and summer, when oil prices were breaking high cost records, which promised high gas prices. After the collapse in the oil market next year, gas export prices in Europe will also be very modest. This means that Ashgabat may change its mind about switching to the European formula. Moreover, it is very likely that if the oil price stabilizes at $50 per barrel, Gazprom will not be able to resell Turkmen gas without losses, even if the current purchase price is maintained ($150 per thousand cubic meters).

Alexey GRIVACHS