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Каспинфо январь 2001 |
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Название: Материалы на английском - II Главные Пункты: * ОПЕК намерена сокращать добычу нефти, поскольку цены на нее опустились ниже $22 за баррель. * Планирующийся 800-км газопровод из Нигерии был представлен Shevron как проект, который будет способствовать значительному снижению объемов сжигания попутного газа на нефтяных месторождениях. Однако компания умолчала об очевидных негативных последствиях проекта - потере биоразнообразия, подрыве рыбного хозяйства, загрязнение воды, насильном переселении более 50000 чел., проживающих в районе маршрута трубы... * НПО обвиняют ВР в том, что, работая в Азербайджане, компания применяет к Каспию те же стандарты, что и к Северному морю, что совершенно недопустимо, поскольку оно не является замкнутым водоемом. Кроме того, по информации НПО, ВР продолжает сливать в море буровые растворы, отходы, образующиеся при бурении и добыче. * Гейлар Алиев одобрил предложенные правительством положения о нефтяном фонде. * Возможно, реализация проекта Сахалин-1 будет приостановлена. Официальная причина - его экологическая несостоятельность; реальная - несогласие руководства консорциума и губернатора области в маршруте экспорта нефти. * Вероятно, после смены президента, политика США в Каспийском регионе изменится. В частности, по отношению к трубопроводу Баку-Джейхан - коммерческая состоятельность которго до сих пор не доказана. * ЛУКойл и ГНКАР подписали контракт на сумму в 250 млн. долларов. Контракт предусматривает разведку блока Говсани-Зих, добыча на котором уже велась. ГНКАР и ЛУКойл будут вести добычу на этом блоке на паритетных началах в течение 25 лет. * Сооружение трубопровода КТК будет несколько задержано для проведение тестовых работ на участке Атырау - Забурунная. * 10 нефтедобывающих компаний США и Великобритании подписали программу, иниицированную правительством, в поддержку мер, призванных обуздать разгул насилия и нарушений прав человека в районах работы нефтедобытчиков в развивающихся странах. (05.01.2001) Полный Текст Материалы на английском - II МАТЕРИАЛЫ НА АНГЛИЙСКОМ ***** TRIPOLI, Libya, Dec. 25 - Oil-producing nations should consider stopping all pumping for one or two years to fend off any attempts to lower world oil prices, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, Libya's leader, said in a letter to President Hugo Chбvez of Venezuela that was made public today. The letter, published in official Libyan newspapers, appeared to be Colonel Qaddafi's response to Mr. Chбvez's call Sunday on members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to fight efforts to reduce the price of oil, his country's main export. Mr. Chбvez had accused some oil-consuming countries of playing "a dirty game" of trying to push prices below $10 a barrel. "Since the issue is one of aggression on the resources of the people of OPEC, then our last resort might be halting oil pumping completely for a year or two," Colonel Qaddafi said in his letter. Halting production, Colonel Qaddafi wrote, is "a means of defending ourselves and our interests." Last week, oil prices reached their lowest level in eight months, dropping to less than $22 a barrel. Under OPEC's pricing system, production is supposed to be cut by 500,000 barrels a day if oil prices remain below $22 a barrel for 10 consecutive business days. Venezuela's Oil Minister, Ali Rodriguez, who is also OPEC's president, has said the cartel will probably cut output in January if prices continue dropping. Several OPEC members favor the suggestion. **************************************** Africa News December 28, 2000 SECTION: NEWS, DOCUMENTS & COMMENTARY HEADLINE: West Africa; WEST AFRICA: Focus On Concerns Over Regional Gas Pipeline BYLINE: UN Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) Abidjan - If all goes to plan, construction of the 800-km pipeline will begin in 2001 to transport natural gas from Nigeria to the neighbouring states of Benin, Togo and Ghana by the end of 2002. Conceived in the early 1990s by the US oil giant Chevron, the project is touted as key to reducing gas flares from Nigeria's oilfields reputed to be one of the major sources of greenhouse emissions worldwide, and is estimated to cost some US $400 million. The project is expected to boost, significantly, energy generation in West Africa, which will be consumed mostly by independent power producers in the recipient countries. Apart from Chevron Nigeria Limited, which has a 36.7-percent stake in the joint venture now known as the West African Pipeline Company, there are five other participants. They include Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation with a 25 percent interest; Shell Nigeria which has an 18 percent stake; Ghana National Petroleum Corporation which owns 16.3 percent, and; Societe Benenois de Gaz SA and Societe Togolais de Gaz, each with a 2-percent stake. Lauded as an example of regional economic cooperation, the promoters of the project in addition to the US $400-million it will cost to build the pipeline, expect investments of up to US $600 million in power plants, and US $800 million in other associated industrial investments, especially in minerals processing. It will also reduce the use of carbon-based fuels. However, with the imminent take-off of the project, environmental groups are alleging that fears of the possible adverse environmental impact have been brushed aside in the interests of the consortium. "Agreements have been negotiated and signed, contracts for the sale of gas have been sealed (and or about being sealed), yet the local people through whose communities the pipeline will traverse know nothing about the project," says 'Pipe Dreams', a recent report on the project jointly published by the Environmental Rights Action (ERA) of Nigeria and the international groups Oilwatch and Friends of the Earth. "And against local and international laws, the consortium is yet to conduct an environmental impact assessment study for the project," it adds. Likely negative impacts on the environment expected from the pipeline, which will take both onshore and offshore routes, include loss of flaura and fauna through clearing of vegetation, disruption of fishing activities, undermining of water quality by pollution and possible displacement of an estimated 50,000 people in communities living along the pipeline route. There are also fears of fires from pipeline ruptures and changes to traditional land tenure systems. Under the principles of the Rio Declaration agreed at the 1992 World Summit on the Environment in Brazil, impact assessments are required for all projects likely to have adverse effects on the ecosystem. This is reflected in the Nigerian Environmental Impact Assessment Law of 1992, the Ghanaian Environmental Protection Agency Act of 1994, the Lois Cadre Sur l'Environement en Republic du Benin enacted in 1999 and the Code de l'Environement en Republic du Togo of 1998. Chevron, which is the project leader, insists that an impact assessment on the pipeline was never ruled out. "The current routing activities include a desk-top review of land characteristics and usage, plus an on-the-ground survey for the purposes of preliminary design and early identification of potential community or environmental impacts," the company said in March, responding to enquiries by concerned environment groups. "Every effort will be made to avoid community and environmental impacts, and where impacts are unavoidable, mitigation measures will be considered to minimise the impacts," it added, promising that full details would be made public as soon as the documents were ready. So far, an impact assessment report is still not available. Environmentalist groups opposing the project have expressed fears that those communities likely to be affected by the pipeline project may be simply presented with a 'fait accompli'. Pipe Dreams alleges that the pipeline consortium has not considered consulting with local people due to the wide legal protection oil and gas companies enjoy, especially in Nigeria from where the mineral will be pumped. "Under the existing legal order, all minerals, oil and gas in Nigeria belong to the central government," Pipe Dream says. Besides the Nigerian Land Use Decree of 1979 vests all land in the country in the government. The consequence of this for the oil and gas industry is that whenever the partnership of the government and oil companies require land for any purpose, industry can take the land without consulting local communities; and it would only be required by law to pay compensation for crops and buildings but not for the use of the land. The report alleges that as a result of government involvement in the oil and gas industry, institutions created by law to monitor the compliance with environmental standards in the sector have remained hamstrung to enforce the rules. "The wetlands and the mangroves that the pipeline will traverse are universally registered as fragile ecosystems," the report says. "For it to contribute to sustainable development in the subregion, the diverse ecological zones through which the project will pass deserve to be protected. This does not seem to be on the agenda of the West African Gas Pipeline consortium." To find out more about the international campaign to reform Export Credit Agencies (ECAs), please see www.eca-watch.org. To view the ECA-Watch archives or to see a directory of ECA-Watch members, visit the topica website at http://www.topica.com/lists/eca-watch. Follow the simple registration instructions if you are not yet registered. ***** CENN From: Caspian International Big Oil Pollution of the Caspian Sea is being continued. BP - the leader of the pollution of the Caspian in Azerbaijan. According to the reliable sources close to the Azerbaijan Environmental Regulatory Body BP - the company which is the most active Foreign Oil Company, operating in Azerbaijan has been continuing a big pollution of the Caspian. BP company ignores an uniqueness of the Caspian sea and applies the North Sea standards in their operations in Azerbaijan, which are not applicable to the Caspian - the enclosed water body. According to the reliable sources BP now is starting the development programme for Shah Deniz gas field. Company does nothing to develop Shah Deniz Standards, which are the requirements of the contract signed between BP and Azerbaijan Government. In spite of that scientific / NGO community many times asked Mr. David Woodward, company's president in Azerbaijan about Shah Deniz standards development, this issue is now buried. BP usually works under umbrella of local pocket-scientists, such as Prof. Abdul Kasymov and Rafik Kasymov which usually close their eyes and gives "green light" to all discharges and pollution of the Caspian sea. BP company only "declares" about its "green" HSE Policy. But in reality BP company discharge all drilling muds and cuttings, waste waters, drilling and production chemicals in the Caspian sea. All this lead to a big seal and fish mortality. As result of this vandal activity the Caspian natural world is in a big danger. NGO - Caspian International ***** RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC ___________________________________________________________ RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 1, Part I, 3 January 2001 AZERBAIJAN'S PRESIDENT APPROVES REGULATIONS FOR STATE OIL FUND... Heidar Aliev approved the government-drafted regulations for the country's state oil fund on 29 December, exactly one year after instructing the cabinet to draft and submit such framework regulations within two months, Turan and Interfax reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 3 January 2000). Aliev had proposed the creation of such a fund, to be administered by the Azerbaijan National Bank, in November 1999. Aliev ordered the state oil company SOCAR to transfer the $270 million liable for payment into the fund to a special bank account by 5 January. Aliev has not yet named the president of the oil fund; in December 1999 the independent daily "Zerkalo" predicted that his son Ilham, who is SOCAR vice-president, would be appointed to that post. LF ***** Russian Environmental digest 23 Oil And Gas Project Sakhalin-1 May Be Closed Again Agency WPS, December 27, 2000 The oil and gas project Sakhalin-1 may be closed. The official reason is an environmental friendliness problem. However this is not the real reason. In fact the companies which are taking part in the project and Sakhalin Governor Igor Farkhutdinov disagree about how to export oil from the Sakhalin offshore fields. The Governor is threatening to suspend the project. December 25 the conflict moved to Moscow. Economic Development and Trade Ministry officials attempted to reconcile the parties, but failed. Governor Farkhutdinov and the consortium cannot come to an agreement on how to construct a pipeline for oil export from Sakhalin. Rosneft and Exxon advocate upgrading the available oil pipeline from Okha on the north end of the island to De-Kastri port in the Khabarovsk Territory, and further oil delivery by tankers to Japan and South Korea. For this purpose the companies will need to build a new pipeline from the offshore fields to Okha and expand capacity of the old one. However this proposal conflicts with Farkhutdinov's plans, because in this case oil would not be exported from Sakhalin, and the regional budget would not receive a single kopeck. That is why Farkhutdinov advocates a plan of his own, which includes building a pipeline from the northern part of the Sakhalin seabed to the settlement Prigorodnoe on the southern part of the island, and exporting oil from there via Aniva Bay. Then the Governor would fully control the exported oil. However, there is also another reason. Farkhutdinov is actively promoting the Sakhalin Oil Company, which produces oil and gas from small fields in the southern part of the island, on foreign markets. The regional administration holds 100% in the company, and the export pipeline built near the fields would be quite appropriate. The federal government objects to simultaneous construction of two oil pipelines, because according to the sharing production terms the government would be required to reimburse the cost of both pipelines to investors. ***** #6 eurasianet.org January 8, 2001 Changing US Administration Provides Opportunity For Review Of Caspian Policy By Andrew Apostolou Editor's Note: Andrew Apostolou is a historian at St. Antony's College, Oxford. The change of administration in the US provides an opportunity for Washington to review a confused Caspian Sea policy. US Caspian Sea policy has strayed from the original parameters set by President Clinton in May 1998. The result has been the invention of pipeline proposals that are based more on politics than economics, and act as a source of tension among governments and western oil companies. President Clinton said in May 1998 that pipelines should be financed by the private sector, and be commercially viable. Since then, however, the US State Department has altered policy into one of promoting any oil or gas export pipeline that will avoid crossing Russia or Iran. This policy, which is a different from President Clinton's initial vision, is mostly political, designed to further isolate Iran while pushing Russian influence out of the Caspian Sea. There is a degree of economic logic to this State Department approach. Both Russia and Iran are competitors in the oil and gas markets of Caspian Sea exporters -- Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Russia and Iran would probably not hesitate to restrict Azerbaijani, Kazakh or Turkmen oil and gas exports, if they felt that these upcoming rivals from the Caspian Sea were eating into their markets. The main pipeline proposal being pushed by the State Department has been the Baku-Ceyhan oil export pipeline, to run from Azerbaijan to Georgia and then finally to the Turkish Mediterranean oil terminal at Ceyhan. On paper the proposal looks good: it avoids Russia and Iran, and ends in Turkey, a western ally and energy importer with no reason to restrict Caspian Sea energy exports. The problem has long been that few in the oil and gas industry believe that Baku-Ceyhan is commercially viable. Most firms in the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC), the main foreign oil consortium in Azerbaijan, have yet to commit oil to Baku-Ceyhan. Baku-Ceyhan is to have capacity of 1 million barrels per day (b/d), yet AIOC will only produce 800,000 b/d at its peak. Three AIOC firms, Exxon Mobil (USA), LUKoil (Russia) and Pennzoil (USA), seem set to shun the pipeline altogether, reducing total potential AIOC throughput to 616,000 b/d. Claims that Kazakh oil will make up the gap are premature. An accurate estimate of reserves in Kazakhstan's claimed offshore sector will not be available until the end of 2002. Even then, an additional pipeline would have to be built from the Kazakh-claimed oilfields in the northeastern Caspian Sea to Baku, costing yet more money on top of the $2.4 billion to $3.7 billion estimated for Baku-Ceyhan. Oil industry sources have repeatedly pointed out that if Baku-Ceyhan were commercially viable, then it would already have been built. Amoco (USA), before its merger with BP (UK), claimed that Baku-Ceyhan would need $200 million per year in subsidies from the US government to be viable. Rather than engage with the oil companies and take account of the independent studies which have criticised Baku-Ceyhan, the State Department has instead tried to pressure them into paying for a pipeline they do not want. There is an irony here. On the one hand, the US government preaches the virtues of the free market and privatisation to former Communist countries, yet the same US government is trying to force privately-owned western oil companies to build a pipeline that suits its political convenience more than the best interests of these companies' shareholders. By repeatedly stressing that Baku-Ceyhan is commercially viable, the State Department has undermined relations among, on the one hand, the governments of Azerbaijan and Turkey and, on the other, western oil companies such as BP Amoco and Exxon-Mobil. The State Department has encouraged officials in Azerbaijan and Turkey to believe that BP Amoco and Exxon-Mobil's skepticism about Baku-Ceyhan is not well founded. The problem is that what the US government says tends to be taken much more seriously outside the US than within. Many oil industry analysts tend to react with skepticism to claims made by US officials concerning the Caspian Sea, including an assertion that there are 200 billion barrels of oil reserves in the Caspian Sea. Unfortunately, officials in the region take such claims at face value, concluding that the US government knows something that they do not. Similarly, when the State Department tells them that Baku-Ceyhan is commercially viable, the governments conclude, wrongly, that the State Department knows more about oil export pipelines than BP Amoco or Exxon-Mobil. Most of the oil companies in AIOC have now formed a "sponsor group" that will undertake a series of studies on the pipeline's viability. These will conveniently postpone any final decision for another eighteen months, by which time everybody will have forgotten the already missed March 1998 deadline for a decision on whether to build Baku-Ceyhan, and the primacy of commercial over political considerations will perhaps have won out. ***** Russia LUKOIL, Azeri SOCAR sign $250 mln contract Tue Jan 9 20:12:42 2001 GMT BAKU, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Russia's oil major LUKOIL (LKOH.RTS) and Azeri state oil company SOCAR signed a $250 million exploration deal on Tuesday during an official visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to oil-rich Azerbaijan. The contract to explore a Caspian onshore block which includes Govsany and Zikh oilfields located in the southern part of Azerbaijan's Apsheron peninsula had been signed by the presidents of the two oil companies. The block, which has been producing oil for more than 30 years, has estimated residual reserves of 20 million metric tonnes. LUKOIL and SOCAR will rehabilitate and explore it on a parity basis for 25 years. LUKOIL plans to process extracted crude at local refineries and sell obtained products at its gasoline stations in Azerbaijan. Russian and Azeri officials also discussed and signed economic agreements, particularly a document setting guidelines for demarcating economic borders in the Caspian Sea -- still undefined 10 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Azeri Foreign Minister Vilayat Guliyev told Reuters the agreement was a step forward for Russia and Azerbaijan, long at odds over which has the sovereign right over which part of the oil-reach basin. The two leaders agreed that the thorny issue of border delimitation in the Caspian must be resolved jointly by all the coastal states -- Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Iran. Moscow wielded economic mastery over the Caspian basin during the Soviet era but Azerbaijan is fast developing a large and potentially lucrative oil industry, largely with the help of non-Russian foreign firms. Russian and Azeri officials also agreed to settle within two months how much Caspian crude would be transported from Baku to the Russian port of Novorossiisk during the next two years. Copyright © 2000 Reuters Limited ***** RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC ___________________________________________________________ RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 7, Part I, 11 January 2001 LAUNCH OF OIL PIPELINE IN KAZAKHSTAN TO BE DELAYED. A senior official of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium told Interfax and "Izvestiya" this week that the launch of the Tengiz- Novorossiisk export pipeline for Kazakhstan's oil will be delayed from 1 January 2001 to 1 March 2001 to allow for additional testing of the Kazakh sector between Atyrau and Zaburunya and the replacement of faulty valves. In addition, the Kazakh state oil company KazakhOil must instal a meter to calculate the volume of oil that enters Russia from Kazakhstan. Construction of the pipeline, which will have an initial annual throughput capacity of 28.2 million tons, was finished in November 2000. It will take 105 days to fill the pipeline with oil, which means the first crude is likely to reach Novorossiisk in June. LF ***** TURKMENISTAN DOUBLES GAS PRODUCTION. Gas production in Turkmenistan last year totalled 47 billion cubic meters, which is over double the 22.8 billion cubic meters produced in 1999, Interfax reported on 10 January citing the turkmenistan.ru website. Gas exports to the CIS in 2000 totalled 30 billion cubic meters, compared with 8.5 billion tons the previous year. Ashgabat hopes to increase output this year to 70 billion tons. LF ***** World Bank Development News, 22 Dec. 2000 (I hate to be a pessimist, but I think the operative word here is VOLUNTARY....Rory) OIL GROUPS BACK RULES TO GUARD HUMAN RIGHTS. Seven leading US and UK oil and mining companies yesterday announced their support for a government-led initiative aimed at curbing human rights abuses at facilities in developing countries, reports the Financial Times (p.6). The voluntary principles are intended to ensure that companies act to stem abuses by public or private security forces protecting company operations. The initiative arises out of numerous incidents in the past decade in which large oil and mining companies have come under sharp criticism from human rights groups for killings carried out by security forces in states such as Nigeria and Colombia. The seven companies include Chevron, Texaco and Conoco, as well as BP Amoco, Shell, Rio Tinto and Freeport MacMoran. US energy giant Enron is also expected to endorse the initiative within the month. The initiative, launched last year by the US State Department and the British Foreign Office, marks the first time that human rights groups, governments and companies have worked jointly to draft principles for ethical corporate conduct. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called the agreement "a landmark for corporate responsibility," and British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said the pact should "greatly reduce the scope for human rights abuses associated with the way companies protect themselves and their employees overseas." Separately, the Wall Street Journal (p. A6) reports, noting officials hope the measures will form the basis for a global standard for preventing the abuses often linked to energy and mining operations in countries stretching from Latin America to Asia. ***** |