- Where there's oil, there's trouble - and never has that
been truer than today amid fears of a price surge that could pitch the
world's economy back into recession.
-
- More than a decade ago the West, and particularly the
United States, realised that it needed to guarantee oil supplies well into
the next century in an increasingly war-torn world.
-
- And that was before Osama bin Laden threatened to take
control of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest producer, and oil-rich Russia's
government embarked on a plan to take control of its vast reserves.
-
- The answer was to cut out those two tinderbox regions
by building a pipeline that would bring crude from the Caspian Sea to the
Mediterranean coast and the safe hands of fellow Nato member Turkey.
-
- Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, two former Soviet states that
border the Caspian, between them have oil reserves three times the size
of America's. The challenge was to find a secure way of getting the oil
into the petrol tanks of gas-guzzling SUVs before oil shortages and soaring
prices pushed the price of gas on America's forecourts to sky-high levels.
-
- By 2010 the Caspian region could produce 3.7 million
barrels per day. This could fill a large hole in world supplies as world
oil demand is expected to grow from 76 million a day in 2000 to 118.9 million
by 2020. By this time the Middle Eastern members of Opec would be looking
to supply half of that need.
-
- The answer was to drive a 1,090-mile, 42-inch wide pipe
- the world's longest export pipeline - along a 500-metre-wide corridor
from the Caspian Sea port of Baku in Azerbaijan to Ceyhan in Turkey via
some of the world's most unstable and conflict-ridden nations. When it
is complete next year, the pipeline will pump 4.2 million barrels a year,
easing the US's reliance on the unstable Gulf states for oil.
-
- The project will cost up to $4bn (£2.4bn) and is
being built by BTC, a consortium of 11 companies led by BP. Almost three
quarters of the funding will come in the form of bank loans, including
$600m from public bodies such as the World Bank.
-
- In the face of opposition from British pressure groups
such as Friends of the Earth and civil rights groups such as the Kurdish
Human Rights Project, BP set up an independent group, the Caspian Development
Advisory Panel (CDAP). The panel, which included people such as Jan Leschly,
a former head of SmithKline Beecham, and the former US Treasury under-secretary
Stuart Eisenstat, raised concerns about the project at the end of last
year. In their report they said they were worried whether Botas, the company
awarded the contract to build the Turkish section, would meet its social,
environmental and health and safety commitments given its "weak but
evolving environmental and social compliance culture.
-
- "The panel heard concerns that Botas and its contractors
might feel pressure to cut corners on environmental, social and technical
standards to remain on schedule."
-
- It added: "The panel encourages BP... to use all
its leverage, including stoppage of work, if necessary, to ensure Botas
fulfils its commitments." But CDAP's concerns went wider, offering
detailed advice on how to better protect human rights given that Azerbaijan,
Georgia and Turkey have all recently seen "internal or external conflict".
-
- "The poor human rights record of host governments'
security and military forces create a significant reputational risk for
BP and BTC," it said.
-
- Objectors say the impact goes even wider. They say the
threat is twofold - what happens if the pipeline goes wrong, and the destruction
it would wreak even if it goes right. They say that the project will worsen
the already polluted Caspian Sea, where sturgeon numbers are reckoned to
be collapsing. In Georgia, the project will clear areas in two dense primary
forests, cross the buffer zone of a protected natural park, and could badly
affect several rare and endangered species.
-
- In Turkey there are more than 500 endemic plant species
within the corridor, while a third of the country's globally threatened
vertebrates are found within 250 metres of the corridor.
-
- The route crosses two sites protected under national
legislation, including a wildlife protection area for the Caucasian grouse,
a threatened species. There are two critically endangered plant species
and 15 bird species with nesting pairs numbering 500 or less within the
corridor.
-
- Campaigners say legal agreements make BP the effective
governing power over the corridor, over-riding all environmental, social,
human rights or other laws, present and future, for the next 40 years.
Amnesty International says the consortium concluded an unprecedented agreement
with the Turkish government which, it claims, would in effect strip local
people and workers of their civil rights. And that's if the project goes
to plan.
-
- If the project were to go wrong, for instance if an earthquake
broke the pipe or the project fell into the hands of terrorists, the consequences
would be far more serious. Turkey lies in an earthquake zone, with 17 major
shocks in the past 80 years. Since the Baku line will be in place for some
40 years, there is a high chance of a major earthquake during its operation.
-
- The World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development, Britain's Export Credit Guarantee Department and the World
Bank's International Finance Company all carried out extensive assessments
of the project before they decided to lend or underwrite money.
-
- The four whistleblowers who contacted The Independent
all said the way the pipeline was being built failed all international
standards. This included incorrect materials being supplied, work being
started before the land had been surveyed, and the pipe installed before
it had been inspected.
-
- Greg Muttitt, of the campaign group Platform, said: "Environment
groups have raised concerns about the design of this pipeline for the past
two years. What we are seeing now though is that the problems are far worse
than we had imagined. This is a deeply flawed project. Now the banks, which
ignored the warnings and financed the project regardless, have some serious
questions to answer."
-
- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=535312
|