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Каспинфо июнь 2002 |
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Название: МФИ в Каспийском регионе на англ. языке Главные Пункты: * Пресс-релиз сети Bankwatch относительно трубопроводов Баку-Джейхан и Баку-Эрзерум, в котором изложены требования НПО к реализации этих проектов в связи с участием в них международных финансовых институтов МФИ): - предоставление общественности доступа к важнейшим документам по проектам (СРП, Соглашения о транзите и др.); - эффективный и независимый контроль за Нефтяным фондом Азербайджана; - прозрачность аудита Нефтяного фонда; - создание Международного Консультационного Совета по Оценке воздействия на окружающую и социальную среду, куда войдут и НПО, и др. * Письмо-обращение ряда национальных и международных НПО к общественности с призывом потребовать от МФИ при реализации проектов трубопроводов Баку-Джейхан и Баку-Эрзерум соблюдения следующих условий: - независимая оценка влияния планируемых проектов на безопасность в регионе; - создание Международного Консультационного Совета по Оценке воздействия на окружающую и социальную среду с гарантированным участием НПО; - полное соответствие проектов Конвенции ООН по ОВОС в трансграничном аспекте, и др. * На сайте www.ebrd.com/ngo размещена Стратегия ЕБРР в Грузии на английском языке. * 64 НПО из 37 стран мира требуют, чтобы для строительства трубопровода Баку-Джейхан не использовались деньги налогоплательщиков (займы МФИ), т.к. это будет означать, что мировое сообщество финансирует проект, который может привести к милитаризации региона, возобновлению военных конфликтов, загрязнению окружающей среды и т.д. (17.06.2002) Полный Текст МФИ в Каспийском регионе на англ. языке МФИ в Каспийском регионе на англ. языке *** PRESS RELEASE This press release is the last in a series of four, leading up to the World Bank Extractive Industry Review Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Consultation in Budapest, Hungary on June 19-22, 2002. At the Consultation, NGOs will raise the issue of the harm which extractive industry projects have created in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey Pipelines Highlight Ills of Extractive Industry TBILISI, June 10, 2002 -- The IFC and other international financial institutions are considering the possibility of financing the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Main Export Oil Pipeline (BTC) and Baku- Tbilisi-Erzrum Gas pipelines. CEE Bankwatch Network and other NGOs are demanding that they not finance the project until the project is able to demonstrate real development benefits to the public in the Caspian region. Also, there must be full access to all documents related to the project and a proper assessment of the existing social, economic, and environmental impacts. Background Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, the main export oil pipeline, and the Baku- Tbilisi-Erzrum pipeline represent a new concept of energy corridor development that would connect the Caspian Sea Coast to the Turkish Mediterranean, to provide oil and gas for the European market. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline (1760 km long) will be a dedicated pipeline system transporting up to one million barrels per day - 50 million tonnes per annum - of crude oil from an expanded Sangachal terminal near Baku in Azerbaijan, through Georgia, to a new marine terminal at Ceyhan in Turkey on the Mediterranean coast. The BTC project is currently in the midst of a 12-month, USD 150 million engineering phase led by British Petroleum. Construction is targeted to begin mid-2002 and the project is planned to be fully operational by 2004-2005. The political significance of the project has been recognised by the US Government, who indeed directly advocates the continuation and expansion of export routes in its National Energy Security Policy. The project depends on the political and financial support from Western Governments and International Financial Institutions. According to British Petroleum CEO John Browne, the BTC option makes sense only "if 'free money' was offered by governments to build the line." Therefore, IFC, EBRD, EIB, US Ex-Im, US OPIC, and JEXIM are in various stages of consideration of the project. Benefits for the region While there are high expectations regarding budgetary income, increased employment opportunity and access to energy carriers from oil and gas pipelines both in Azerbaijan and in Georgia, the situation already seems to be rather different. The oil sector itself provides only a restricted amount of employment and income opportunities, particularly for the poor. Taking into account the high level of corruption in the region (Azerbaijan and Georgia are ranked by Transparency International as being among the most corrupted countries), the non-transparent budgetary system, the existing burden in oil revenues management and difficulties even for the IMF to oversee spending, these concerns are easily understandable. Even more, according to the head of the Georgian International Oil Corporation, up to half of all transit fees received by Georgia could go to finance security for the pipeline, including compensation to Turkey for military training, electronic surveillance systems, and arms and ammunition to help Tbilisi maintain pipeline security. While the pipeline is being built for the export of natural gas, communities along the route do not have a gas supply. There is no contractual commitment from the companies on securing the possibility of a gas supply to those communities. There are particularly high concerns regarding health and safety issues (e.g. crime, prostitution, AIDS and other communicable diseases, potential conflicts, security, etc.) arising within the local communities as a result of expatriations from workforces in construction camps. Transparency and access to information The companies and the governments are trying to prevent meaningful public participation in the project. For example, Production Sharing Agreements, basic documents according to which the companies get the right to the oil resources, are not publicly available, despite the fact that they were ratified by Azerbaijanian Parliament. It should not be surprising that the project sponsors are keeping confidential key documents such as the macro-level impact studies which address comparative pipeline costs, issues of redistribution of oil revenues, cumulative environmental, social and economic project impacts and the economic and political assessment of regional alternatives. Democracy and Human Rights The 1,730 km oil pipeline poses a major security risk, with international implications. The vulnerability of the region regarding the existing and potential conflicts between countries, as well as within the countries, due to ethnic and religion clashes, is one of the most acute issues. British Petroleum has said that "[t]he pipelines will of course benefit from the military presence." The human rights implications of such militarisation has yet to be assessed, however, as have the implications for exacerbating the conflict in the region, such as the Armenia and Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Further, it is of grave concern that the Turkish section of the route passes through Kurdish areas where the creation of a `militarised corridor' along the pipeline route could destabilise the three-year cease fire which recently brought an end to a 15-year armed conflict between the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Turkish security forces. Environmental Issues The project sponsor has tried to represent environmental impacts of BTC that technically apply only to construction and maintenance of pipelines. However, the BTC pipeline is part of wider offshore oil and gas field development in the region, and associated upstream and downstream terminals. But the company is presenting only national EIAs country by country, to reduce concerns regarding the overall cumulative environmental impacts of enhanced oil drilling on Caspian's Fragile environment, the negative influence on the fragile biodiversity of South Caucasus, not to mention the enormous potential of greenhouse gas emission and its impact on Climate Change. The AGT pipelines crosses six main water-crosses and several groundwater basins, as well as several environmentally sensitive areas - natural protected areas of various categories, including the State Gobustani Reserve in Azerbaijan, Ksia Tabaskuri managed reserve and multiple support zone of Borjomi-Karagauli National Park, that treated to Borjomi Mineral Water reserves. NGOs Demands regarding IFC involvement in the Project We urge the IFC and other International Financial Institutions which have been approached with regard to supporting the project to make any project approval conditional on: *Immediate disclosure of crucial agreements and documents for the project for independent review *Host Country Agreements, Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) and Transit Sharing Agreements (TSAs) *Macro-Level Assessments including: *Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) *Regional Overview, including an assessment of geopolitical issues *Macro-Economic Assessment *Effective and independent oversight of the Azeri Oil Fund including: *Independent oversight over the Azeri Oil Fund should be exerted, including civil society representatives on the oversight committees; *Transparency in the auditing of the Oil Fund. At a minimum, quarterly reports on the income and expenditure of the Oil Fund should be made public; *Projects funded through the Fund are demonstrably geared to relieving poverty and improving social, environmental and public health conditions. *Independent verification that the contracts for the project were not obtained corruptly and publication of the investigation's findings; *Mandatory implementation of social programmes and actions to give local communities access to energy resources; *Thorough and independent assessment of security issues affecting the BTC pipeline system and the impacts that a strong military presence along the pipeline corridor might have on existing conflicts and tensions in the region; *The establishment of an International Advisory Group on ESIA, that would include NGOs; *Involvement of the Dutch Commission for Environmental Impact Assessment in the independent review of the ESIAs for both pipelines; *Full application of the UN ECE Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context; *Full Compliance with the World Bank's Safeguard policies, in particular OD 4.20 (Indigenous Peoples) and OP 4.12 and BP 4.12 (Involuntary Resettlement); and *Full assessment of the long-term climate impacts of the project and its related oil and gas development programmes in the region. Finally, we would urge the IFC and other IFIs to screen the proposed BTC pipeline and its associated oil and gas infrastructure projects for its social and development impact. We believe that the use of "free public money" cannot be justifiable unless the project is able to clearly demonstrate positive local and regional development impacts associated with the project over the next 30 years - which is the planned lifetime of the pipeline, according to oil companies. For further information about the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, please contact: Manana Kochladze phone: +99 532 22 38 74 email: manana@wanex.net For further information about the EIR Consultation, please contact: Petr Hlobil phone: +420 2 7478 2208 email: petr.hlobil@ecn.cz *** May, 2002 Dear Sirs, Baku-T'blisi-CehyanMain Export Oil Pipeline Project - MDB and ECA involvement We are writing to you about the possible involvement of several International Financial Institutions (namely, the IFC, MIGA, EBRD, EIB and US Eximbank and OPIC, Japan Eximbank) in the financing of the Baku-T'blisi-Ceyhan Main Export Oil Pipeline Project (BTC) and to urge your institutions to impose a number of conditions on loan approval at the earliest possible stage of project appraisal. As national, regional and international NGOs, we have been monitoring both the BTC project and wider oil and gas development in the Caspian region. From our research, we understand that the companies in the consortium are in a position to finance only 30% of the projected project costs out of their own budgets: the rest of the required $3.3 billion is being sought from public lending institutions. Indeed, John Browne, chief executive of BP, which is leading the BTC Sponsor Group, is on record as saying the BTC project would not be possible unless " 'free public money' was offered by government to build the line." As we understand it, BP is likely to seek several hundreds of millions of dollars of such "free public money" from the EBRD, EIB and World Bank Group, as well as from Export Credit Agencies. Although the BTC Sponsor Group has as yet to make a formal application for support from these IFIs, we understand that BP has had preliminary discussions with IFI staff and that applications for support will be submitted later this year. Significantly, Mr Woicke of the IFC recently informed NGOs at a meeting on 19th April 2002 that a preliminary assessment of possible project impacts is already being undertaken by three IFC experts in the region. As you will know, the BTC pipeline is only a part of a much wider oil and gas development programme in the region, which includes the parallel Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum gas pipeline to be laid in the same energy corridor; the off-shore oil and gas fields being developed in the Caspian Sea; and associated upstream and downstream terminals. In our view, the impacts of the BTC cannot be assessed in isolation from these wider developments. We believe that the long-term developmental benefits of current oil and gas development in the region are questionable. We are therefore writing to express our grave concerns about the social, developmental, human rights, environmental and security impacts of regional oil and gas development in general and of the BTC pipeline in particular. These concerns are summarised below and amplified further in the accompanying Memorandum. They include: * The failure to make available key documents, such as relevant production sharing and transit agreements, readily accessible to the public and to disclose studies that have been undertaken on the macro-level implications of the BTC project; * The skewed distributional impacts of current oil and gas development in the region; * The failure to produce a resettlement action plan, despite acknowledgments by BP that, in Georgia at least, some people will lose their entire livelihood to the BTC project; * The failure to undertake a full and comprehensive assessment of the BTC project's impacts on ethnic minorities along the pipeline route; * The lack of independent and effective oversight of the Azeri Oil fund; * Concerns over corruption; * Concerns over militarisation in the pipeline corridor and the potential of the BTC project to exacerbate conflict ion the region; and * The failure to assess the long-term climate implications of the BTC project. We urge the International Financial Institutions that you leading to facilitate the immediate disclosure of the project related PSAs and TSAs for each of the three countries through which the BTC pipeline will pass. Furthermore, we urge the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) which have been approached with regard to support for the project to make any project approval conditional on: * Disclosure of the macro-level impact studies undertaken by the project sponsors and their submission to a full and timely consultation exercise with interested parties; * Compliance with the World Bank's Safeguard policies, in particular OD 4.20 (Indigenous Peoples) and OP 4.12 and BP 4.12 (Involuntary Resettlement); * Independent oversight of the Azeri Oil Fund, including civil society representation; * Independent verification that the contracts for the project were not obtained corruptly and the publication of the investigation's findings; * Mandatory implementation of social programmes to supply local communities with sustainable and affordable sources of energy; * Independent assessment of the security implications of the proposed pipeline and compliance with the World Bank's guidelines on projects in areas of conflict; * The setting up of an International Advisory Group with guaranteed NGO representation on a self-elected basis; * Full assessment of the long-term climate impacts of the project and its related oil and gas development programmes in the region; * Full application of the UN ECE Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context; * Involvement of the Dutch Commission for Environmental Impact Assessment in the independent review of the ESIAs for the BTC project and the associated Baku-Tbilisi- Erzerum gas pipeline. Finally, we would urge the IFIs to screen the proposed BTC pipeline and its associated oil and gas infrastructure projects for its social and development impact. We believe that the use of "free public money" cannot be justifiable unless the project is able to clearly demonstrate positive local and regional development impacts associated with the project over the next 30 years - which is the planned lifetime of the pipeline according to oil companies. One possibilities would be a screening of the project under the IFC's new Sustainability Initiative. Presidents, we believe that an early public commitment by the IFIs to imposing clear conditions on project approval, as outlined above, would lay the ground for a credible and transparent assessment by the IFIs of all project impacts and alternatives in the long-term, including the "no-project" option. In our view, the lack of such a commitment would clearly signal an uncritical bias by the IFIs in favour of the project and a failure to have due regard to its undeniable long-term controversial development impacts. We look forward to your prompt reply and remain sincerely yours. Manana Kochladze Green Alternatives, Georgia Antonio Tricarico Campaign to reform the World Bank, Italy Kerim Yildiz Kurdish Human Rights Project Doug Norlen Pacific Environment, US Kate Hampton Friends of the Earth - International Petr Hlobil CEE Bankwatch Network Nicholas Hildyard The Corner House, UK Yury Urbansky National Ecological Centre of Ukraine Carol Welch Friends of the Earth - US James Marriott Platform Petr Hlobil International Oil and Climate Coordinator CEE Bankwatch Network Kratka 26, Praha 10, 100 00, Czech Republic Tel.+fax: 420-2-7481 65 71 http://www.bankwatch.org *** The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development' Strategy for Georgia is posted at the www.ebrd.com/ngo in English. *** Hot News* Bankwatch Press Release: BP Should Not Get "Free Public Money" to Build Controversial Pipeline, Say International NGOs ================================================ BP Should Not Get "Free Public Money" to Build Controversial Pipeline, Say International NGOs ================================================ 26 June 2002 joint NGOs press release Sixty-four non-governmental organisations from over 37 countries have written to the World Bank and major national export credit agencies strongly opposing plans by BP, the world's third largest oil company, to use "free public money" (1) to build a controversial oil pipeline from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. The proposed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (2) will run through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. 70 per cent of the required $3.3 billion is being sought from taxpayers primarily in Europe, Japan and the US through public lending institutions, such as the World Bank and export credit agencies. (3) None of the most important project agreements have been released. Nonetheless, an application for financial support has already been made to the US ExIm Bank, even though most of the environmental and social studies have yet to be finalised. NGOs are concerned that the pipeline will bring few benefits to poorer people and could exacerbate tensions in the region which is only just recovering from a number of major conflicts. (4) The project is also criticised for its potential to fuel damaging climate change. "The long-term developmental benefits of current oil and gas development in the Caspian region are questionable", said Manana Kochladze from Green Alternatives in Georgia. "The use of 'free public money' cannot be justifiable unless the project is able to clearly demonstrate positive local and regional development impacts associated with the project over the next 30 years - which is the planned lifetime of the pipeline according to oil companies". "Some people will lose their entire livelihood because of the project and it is likely that companies' promises to bring jobs and local development will not be met", said Petr Hlobil of CEE Bankwatch. "Local people lack basic energy supplies. But the oil and gas from the Caspian will be piped straight to western markets. Local communities will be bypassed completely." "This pipeline would militarise a corridor running from the Caspian to the Mediterranean", says Kerim Yildiz of the Kurdish Human Rights Project. "This could threaten the fragile cease fire in the Kurdish region through which the pipeline will pass." "The pipeline would have a major effect on climate change ", says Kate Hampton of Friends of the Earth International. "The oil transported along the pipeline, once burned, will contribute 185 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year. This is equivalent to nearly one-third of the UK's total CO2 emissions for 2000. If public money is used for this pipeline, we will all be subsiding dirty energy, both here and, worse, in the US, where emissions are still growing and where the Bush Administration has reneged on the Kyoto climate treaty." The NGOs are demanding that no public money be made available to the consortium seeking to build the pipeline unless stringent human rights, development and environment conditions are met. For more information, please contact: Kate Hampton, Friends of the Earth International, 02075661723 You can find NGO Proposal and NGO Letter to IFIs together with endorsed NGOs on the Bankwatch website - http://www.bankwatch.org/ Notes: 1) John Browne, chief executive of BP, which is leading the BTC Sponsor Group, told the Financial Times in November 1998 that the BTC project would not be possible unless " 'free public money' was offered by government to build the line." 2) The Baku-T'bilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Main Export Oil Pipeline Project is only a part of a much wider oil and gas development programme in the region, which includes the parallel Baku-Tbilisi- Erzerum gas pipeline to be laid in the same energy corridor; the off-shore oil and gas fields being developed in the Caspian Sea; and associated upstream and downstream terminals. The oil and gas pipelines are together referred to as the Azerbaijan- Georgia-Turkey (AGT) project. 3) Such institutions, all of which rely on public money, include: the World's Bank's private sector arms (IFC and MIGA), the European Bank for reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. 4) For example, the pipeline passes through several Kurdish areas in Turkey and threatens to destabilise the fragile three-year guerrilla ceasefire which recently brought an end to the 15-year armed conflict between the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Turkish security forces which took a devastating toll on the civilian population. The pipeline also passes close to Nagorno-Karabakh, an area fought over in the early 1990s by Azerbaijan and Armenia. INFO CENN Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN) |