One for oil and oil for one

What is really at stake is something quite different, almost entirely unmentioned in the Western media. It is rather more prosaic than a ‘people power’ revolution. It is primarily a battle over oil transit routes from the second largest remaining oil deposits in the world, and, more long term, a US attempt to pre-empt Chinese designs on the key strategic space round the southern rim of the old Soviet Union.

In May 2000 an oilfield containing 20–50 billion barrels of oil was discovered in the Caspian Sea off the Kazakhstan coast, probably the biggest hitherto untapped reserve in the world. But, with major exploration only now getting under way, early seismic studies suggest vast resources of hydrocarbons ranging from 70–200 billion barrels of oil and some 250 trillion cubic feet of gas — less than in the Middle East but much more than in the US and Europe

Spectator