Experts Warn Russia Seeks Influence Over Vast Caspian Oil Reserves

Rising oil prices, a resurgent Russia and continued turbulence in the Middle East have intensified competition for control of the vast oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea. The competition, involving big business and power politics, pits Russia against the West. At stake, some experts say, is world domination of the energy market. VOA’s Brian Padden recently traveled to Azerbaijan and Germany, and has prepared a series of reports on the politics of oil. This story looks at transnational pipelines, and how they have become battlegrounds for influence and power.

From an off-shore platform in the Caspian Sea, British Petroleum extracts oil from a reserve estimated to contain 5.4 billion barrels of oil. From there, it is piped directly to the Sangachal terminal, located just outside of Baku, the capital of the Central Asian country of Azerbaijan.

From there, it takes a circuitous route, avoiding Russia, to reach energy hungry countries in Europe and Asia. A pipeline, with a capacity of one million barrels a day, transports the oil north to Tbilisi, Georgia, and then southwest to the Mediterranean port city of Ceyhan, Turkey. From there, tankers carry the oil around the world.

The Caspian region now supplies only a portion of the oil the world consumes, but its vast untapped reserves are believed to rival those of Russia and Saudi Arabia.

VOA