- Moscow plans main hubs in Turkey and Israel for Russian
and Azerbaijani oil and gas exports to southern Europe and China
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- Russian president Vladimir Putin discussed the plan with
Turkish prime minister Tayyep Erdogan and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy at
the inauguration Thursday of the Blue Stream pipeline network laid on the
Black Sea bed by the Russian Gazprom and Italian Eni oil giants.
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- DEBKAfile adds: Putin spoke of extending this pipe network
to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. A new underwater branch would
then be built to connect Ceyhan with Israel's Ashkelon oil port, from which
an existing pipe wouldl carry the oil from the Mediterranean to Eilat.
Facilities at this Red Sea port would need to be expanded to accommodate
Russian oil and gas tankers bound for China through the Indian Ocean.
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- As a main regional transit hub for Russian oil exports,
Israel can look forward to stronger trade ties with Russia and Turkey,
thousands of new jobs and royalty revenues running into hundreds of millions
of dollars per year.
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- Our sources add that Israel's infrastructure minister
Binyamin Ben Eliezer on a recent visit to Cairo proposed to President Hosni
Mubarak that Egypt link an underwater pipe planned to carry natural gas
to the Gaza Strip with the Israeli transit station at Ashkelon. Egypt would
thus hook up to the projected Russian-Turkish-Israel pipeline scheme.
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- Posted by Ted Belman at November 19, 2005 07:10 AM
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http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=1263
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