Iran takes over Pipelineistan

TEHRAN – The black chador-clad secretaries behind rows of flat computer monitors at the Petroleum Ministry building in central Tehran are all smiles. Not to mention their bosses. No wonder. According to the ministry’s latest estimates in August, Iran will export at least US$60 billion in oil in 2005 – more than $10 billion more than the June estimate.

The axis of oil
Just as top officials from Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey were opening the much-hyped, American-supported Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, Iran started to advertise its counterpunch: an oil pipeline between Iran, Iraq and Syria. True, they are substantially different. BTC will carry Caspian Sea crude to Europe, while the Iranian route would initially carry Caspian Sea crude to Asia. But Iran has a tremendous potential to supply Europe as well – as France’s TotalFinaElf, Italy’s ENI and Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell know more than anyone. …..

Any official at the Petroleum Ministry or NIOC will recite the same mantra: Iran can get Caspian crude to any market at a fraction of the price of BTC. And there’s absolutely nothing the Bush administration can do about it. As Mahmood Khagani, a former Iranian director for Caspian affairs used to say, “The ‘golden gate’ from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf is now open.”

Asia Times