MAY 30 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – An explosion damaged a major pipeline pumping gas from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea coast to Erzurum in eastern Turkey, knocking it out of action for 10 days, news agencies quoted sources as saying. It is unclear what triggered the explosion on the pipeline, an important export route for Azerbaijan’s gas.
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(News report from Issue No. 090, published on June 1 2012)
MAY 25 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The setting may have been relatively inauspicious but the ambition was clear to all.
At an oil and gas conference on the Turkmen Caspian Sea coast on May 23, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and India signed a gas supply deal that should mark the start of construction of a pipeline dubbed TAPI.
To deliver the gas to Pakistan and India, the plan is to build a 1,650km pipeline from Turkmenistan across war-ravaged Afghanistan — that’s the ‘A’ in TAPI.
Many commentators have said that it’s too ambitious and that it can’t be done, especially as security in Afghanistan may worsen further after NATO withdraws forces from 2014.
Still, the estimated $10b project may be too big to fail.
Pakistan and India are hungry for energy and, according to the plan, TAPI should become one of their biggest providers. At its peak TAPI should pump 33b cubic metres of gas a year, about three times the size of the EU’s proposed Nabucco pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Europe.
The project’s success is also vital to both Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. For Afghanistan, TAPI is a prestige project with a critical revenue stream. For Turkmenistan, it cements its position as one of the region’s most important energy suppliers.
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(News report from Issue No. 089, published on May 25 2012)
MAY 4 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Sources inside the Turkmen energy ministry told the AP news agency that Turkmenistan would sign a deal with Afghanistan, Pakistan and India later this month on gas prices for the so-called TAPI pipeline. The planned pipeline, due to run from Turkmenistan to India via Afghanistan and Pakistan, is seen as an important economic step for the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 087, published on May 11 2012)
APRIL 9 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Socar, Azerbaijan’s state oil company, said its oil exports through the pipeline running from Baku to Ceyhan in Turkey (BTC) dropped 7.8% in Q1 2012 compared to Q1 2011. Socar gave no reason for the oil output drop through BTC, an important energy route to Europe. In 2011 Azerbaijan’s oil production fell by 10%.
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(News report from Issue No. 083, published on April 13 2012)
MARCH 29 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkish energy minister, Metin Kilci, said Turkey and Azerbaijan might agree a deal in April to build a gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea, media quoted Reuters as reporting. A deal to build the so-called Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) would please European countries which have been pushing for a new energy route from the Caspian to reduce their reliance on Russian gas supplies.
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(News report from Issue No. 081, published on March 30 2012)
FEB. 12 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR said it wanted European partners for its planned Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) across Turkey. TANAP is considered by some as a rival to the EU-backed Nabucco pipeline proposal. SOCAR will offer part of its 80% stake in TANAP to Western energy companies.
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(News report from Issue No. 77, published on Feb. 16 2012)
DEC. 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia’s state-controlled energy company Gazprom agreed to roughly double the amount of gas it buys from Azerbaijan next year, Dow Jones news agency reported. The deal comes just as the Azerbaijanis are deciding which of three proposed gas transport routes to Europe to support.
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(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)
DEC. 12 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan delayed backing one of three proposed projects to transport gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe. A decision had been expected by the end of 2011 but will now be made by March 2012, said the head of state oil energy company SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev. The three projects are Nabucco, Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TANAP) and Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
SEPT. 26 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP has proposed building another pipeline from the Caspian Sea to central Europe, media reported, underlining the South Caucasus importance as an energy corridor. There are already three different plans to build pipelines along a similar route — the EU-backed Nabucco pipeline, the Trans-Adriatic pipeline and the IGI Poseidon.
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(News report from Issue No. 58, published on Sept. 27 2011)
SEPT. 13/16 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Both Russia and Iran released statements opposing the EU’s move to negotiate a final deal with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan for gas to fill its Nabucco pipeline running from the Caspian Sea to central Europe. The EU considers Nabucco as vital to its future energy strategy.
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(News report from Issue No. 57, published on Sept. 19 2011)