A consortium of Western oil
companies has found a vast petroleum reserve in the
northern Caspian Sea off the coast of Kazakhstan that
may well be the largest oil discovery anywhere in the
world in the past 20 years, according to U.S.
officials and industry sources. The size of the field
is estimated to be between 8 - 50 billion barrels of
oil. The last oil find of comparable size was in 1979,
also in Kazakhstan, when it was part of the Soviet
Union. That field, located onshore at Tengiz, is now
being exploited by an international consortium led by
the American oil company Chevron Corp.
The key to East-West tensions
For the past two years the Caspian
oil has been at the heart of the growing tensions
between Russia and the West. As expected, the oil find
has set off a flurry of activity between Russia, China
and the West. Thursday, July 27 Stanislav Lunev, the
highest ranking Russian GRU to defect to the West,
said in NewsMax what Discerning the Times has been
saying since last November. "There is no doubt
that Moscow, under Russian President Putin, will do
everything it can to keep its control over oil
supplies coming from all other former Soviet republics
or newly independent states," asserts Lunev.
Western political leaders have
worked closely with Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan
to allow Western oil companies to exploit the oil rich
Caspian Sea at the expense of revenues to Russia. On
Wednesday, July 26 the foreign ministers of Turkey and
Georgia held talks on a major oil pipeline project and
security in the volatile Caucasus, Anatolia news
agency reported.
The pipeline is backed by
Washington and will carry oil from the Caspian Sea
Port of Baku in Azerbaijan through Georgia and then
south through Turkey to the port city of Ceyhan on the
Mediterranean Sea. When it is completed in 2004, it is
expected to carry 350 million barrels of oil a year.
Russia receives about half of its
annual export revenues from oil pipeline fees and
royalties. It is very clear to Russia that the West is
seeking to shut Russia out of what it believes is her
own oil. Such is the understanding of Russia of
globalization and global governance. It has everything
to lose if it does not stop the West, especially the
US.
Russia has fought this oil pipeline
for years. Lunev claims that Russia's attempt to stop
this pipeline has involved "a real war in the
Trans-Caucasus, assassinations and assassination
attempts, political plots and coup attempts –
everything in the Kremlin arsenal was used to prevent
Azerbaijan from making a direct oil route to the
West." This represents the ultimate threat to
Russia. "If this project can be realized,
Azerbaijan oil and, later, oil from Kazakhstan and
other Central Asian former Soviet republics, will go
to the West independently of Russia," alleged
Lunev.
Until now Azerbaijani and
Kazakhstani oil has had to ship their oil through
Russian pipelines to the north of the Caucasus
Mountains. These oil pipelines go through Russia’s
Northern Caucasus, including Chechnya, whose
connection with the oil transportation routes is one
major reason for the bloody war in the area. Chechnya’s
strategic location in the Northern Caucasus made
Chechens a scapegoat for Moscow’s intentions to
control the major routes of energy transportation to
the West.
Russia must have this control
before the new world government is fully implemented
if it expects to be a major player in the new world
order. The problem is that Russia does not have the
capital or the modern equipment to fully exploit this
oil or develop its own modern pipeline distribution
system. Hence, it needs assistance from the West. Putin’s
entire economic reform package depends on a
combination of debt forgiveness and new investment in
developing and transporting this oil. Putin, however,
received a major slap in the face during the G-8
meeting in July when the West decided not to give any
aid to Russia. This decision may force Putin to take
some bold and reckless steps to secure a future for
Russia.
The Moscow Bomb Blast — terrorism
or intrigue?
The bomb blast in a Moscow
pedestrian underpass on Wednesday, August 9 raises the
ugly spectre that this may be a continuation of the
intrigue, war and assinations that Col. Lunev
described as surrounding the Azerbaijan-Georgia oil
pipeline.
Eight people were killed and 53
injured in the premeditated explosion. While Moscow
Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, claimed the blast was set off by
terrorists, the prime minister of the Islamic
Government of Dagestan (which borders Chechnya),
Sirazhdin Ramazanov, claimed Friday, August 11 that
the blast was the work of the Kremlin.
There has been much speculation in
the press and elsewhere that the Chechen rebels are
responsible. Chechen rebels fighting Russian forces in
the North Caucasus had threatened to launch terrorist
attacks to mark the anniversary of the Chechen
retaking of their capital, Grozny, from Russia on
August 6, 1996, during the first war between federal
forces and separatists in Chechnya.
Ramazanov, however, stressed that
the security service of the Islamic government had
information about the Federal Security Service (FSB)
preparing several other terrorist acts in towns in
central Russia. Ironically, the same security service
of the Islamic government warned last August of
similar bombings that were going to be set off by the
Federal Security Service, the former KGB, to win
popular support for a Chechen war. That is, of course,
exactly what happened.
There is a lot to support
Ramazanov's claims that the FSB was behind the
bombing. On August 9, 1999, Vladimir Putin was
promoted from the head of Russia's FSB to Prime
Minister by Boris Yeltsin. On September 9, one month
later, a bomb destroyed an apartment building in
Moscow killing a 140, followed by a series of
apartment blasts that killed over 300 Russians.
Putin blamed Chechen terrorists,
but they denied it. Normally they would be proud to
claim such an honor, yet they continue to deny it, as
they are denying the current bombing. Conversely,
according to several news reports on August 23, 2000
they proudly announced that they had sunk the Russian
Oscar II class missile submarine, Kursk. Why do the
Chechens claim the submarine sinking (which will
intensify Russia’s miltary action against them) but
deny the bombings over the past year?
On March 14, 2000 Russia Today
officially reported the FSB was caught by Moscow
police on September 20, 1999, planting a live bomb in
yet another apartment building. While the FSB/KGB
claims the action was merely a test, Moscow police
report it was a live bomb set to explode at a time
that would maximize casualties.
It seems all but certain that the
FSB/KGB was involved in the rash of September, 1999
apartment bombings to propel Putin into power and
consolidate popular support behind the Kremlin to
fight a war in Chechnya that would control the oil
pipelines that run through northern Chechnya. That
meant that Putin, as head of the FSB, most likely was
involved in the planning of the bombings. If so, he
killed his own people to advance the Russian agenda of
power politics.
Is the current bombing in Moscow
this past week merely a prelude to another major move
by Russia like the bombing of the apartment buildings
a year ago? Perhaps. Russia has just completed one of
the largest war games with Belarus in history. The
games were designed to show NATO it cannot expect to
take over the Soviet Union’s former southern
Republics, especially Azerbaijan and Georgia, without
a fight. But, Putin is taking another course that
should take the edge off of tensions.
Arctic Oil — Russia’s
Ace in the Hole
Pack ice is receding along Russia’s
northern coast, making it easier for Russia to develop
its Arctic petroleum reserves. The retreat of pack ice
is also opening up northern Russia to new shipping
routes. Already Japan, Norway and Russia are
cooperating on a Europe-to-Asia shipping route that is
nearly 5,000 miles shorter – and takes two weeks
less time – than more temperate routes.
On August 16, Stratfor Intelligence
revealed that LUKoil, a Russian oil firm, is testing
the feasibility of a new oil export terminal at the
Arctic port of Varandei. In addition to adding
significant capacity to Russia’s Siberian operations
if successful, the new port will allow Russia to
export oil directly to Europe, reducing the need for
thousands of miles of pipeline and the political
wrangling their construction would entail. The result:
a direct injection of cash into the Russian firm’s
coffers.
Russia still needs Western capital
to make all of this work, however. In yet another
major power shift, Putin is likely to transfer
authority over petroleum agreements involving foreign
investors from the Energy Ministry to the Economic
Development and Trade Ministry, headed by German Gref.
By doing so Putin not only gives enormous power to
Gref, but decidedly lets the West know that investment
opportunities will be much easier and more secure than
under Yeltsin, Putin's predecessor.
Putin is walking a fine line. He
must not only provide much needed oil at a cheap price
to his own people, but maximize foreign oil sales.
Development of the Arctic oil reserves and cheap
tanker transport will put a lot of desperately needed
money into Russia's coffers in a hurry.
Putin, however, still has to face
the persistent threat of the West trying to take over
what Russia sees as its southern Caspian Sea oil in
the former Soviet Republics. Putin has demonstrated
brilliance in securing alliances with all of these
republics except for Azerbaijan and Georgia, which
Russia must control if they are not to be shut out of
oil flowing from the South Caspian Sea and south of
the Caucasus Mountains. All of this, however, is
leading to a possible military confrontation between
Russia and Azerbaijan-Georgia, and perhaps NATO.
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