Terror alert as Caspian oil pipeline opens
Tom Parfitt in Georgia
Sunday May 28, 2006
The Observer
In the foothills of the Caucasus mountains, a long line of broken mud cuts
across the meadows. If you go anywhere near it, camouflaged guards carrying
automatic weapons emerge from the forest beyond.
These guards in the Borjomi region of Georgia – trained by US army and SAS
veterans – are pawns in a new great game gripping Central Asia: their job is to
protect the oil pipeline buried 10ft below.
‘A terrorist attack is the greatest threat we face,’ says the guards’
commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Giorgi Pantskhava, an energetic Georgian
in desert fatigues and aviator shades.
The $4bn (£2.2bn) BTC – Baku Tbilisi Ceyhan – pipeline comes on stream today
It is key in American plans to reduce dependency on Opec oil producers in
the turbulent Middle East. Pumping oil 1,000 miles from the Caspian sea tothe
Mediterranean through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, it will avoid Russia-
increasingly seen by the US as a resurgent superpower prepared to use control
of energy resources as a political weapon.
The pipeline – 70 per cent funded by the World Bank, the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development, and export credit agencies – took three years
to build and will carry up to one million barrels of oil a day to western
markets. Yet its position on the faultline between Russia and its estranged
former Soviet neighbours makes it a shaky bet.
The fiercely pro-Washington government of Georgia’s president, Mikhail
Saakashvili, welcomed the BTC with open arms, saying transit payments wouldhelp
to kick-start the economy of the faltering ex-Soviet state.
Since coming to power in 2004 Saakashvili has steered his country away from
Russia towards co-operation with the US. ‘Georgia will be America’s partnerin
spreading democracy around the world,’ Bush told rapturous crowds during the
first visit of a US president to the country last year. Yet the pipeline,
constructed and run by a BP-led consortium, will open in the teeth of bitter
opposition.
Green campaigners say the route passes too close to Georgia’s Borjomi Gorge,
a tourist spot with mineral water springs and abundant wildlife. ‘If there is
even a minor oil leak here then the reputation of the area will be
irreparably damaged,’ says Vano Shalutashvili, of the Borjomi People’s
Democracy Institute, a non-governmental organisation that has fought for the
pipeline to be diverted. A leak on one section was detected in a test run
this month.
Critics also say BTC passes too close to volatile breakaway regions in both
Georgia and Azerbaijan, making it vulnerable to sabotage that could cause a
catastrophic spill.
Georgia’s interior ministry is taking no chances. Original plans to patrol
the BTC route with unmanned reconnaissance aircraft were dropped in favour of
small, roving anti-terrorist squads. Yet even these might not be able to
prevent an attack, as another guard admitted: ‘Iran may try to strike it with
a missile and we shouldn’t forget that Russia is the primary expert for
techniques in blowing up pipelines,’ he said.
Locals are furious with BP, claiming a host of negative consequences from the
construction: houses damaged by heavy traffic, low compensation for lost
land, and polluted springs. Pavel Poshnakhov, 45, a villager in Tsikhisjvari,
said he had to show his passport to guards when he crossed the corridor with
his cattle, or went to collect firewood.
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Useful links
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International Energy Agency ()
American Petroleum Institute
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