[Peace-discuss] Fwd: The oil behind Bush and Son's campaigns - Asia Times

[Al Kagan]

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>Asia Times Online					     October 6, 2001
>
>
>The oil behind Bush and Son's campaigns
>
>      By Ranjit Devraj
>
>New Delhi - Just as the Gulf War in 1991 was all about oil, the new conflict
>in South and Central Asia is no less about access to the region's abundant
>petroleum resources, according to Indian analysts.
>
>"US influence and military presence in Afghanistan and the Central Asian
>states, not unlike that over the oil-rich Gulf states, would be a major
>strategic gain," said V R Raghavan, a strategic analyst and former general
>in the Indian army. Raghavan believes that the prospect of a western
>military presence in a region extending from Turkey to Tajikistan could not
>have escaped strategists who are now readying a military campaign aimed at
>changing the political order in Afghanistan, accused by the United States of
>harboring Osama bin Laden.
>
>Where the "great game" in Afghanistan was once about czars and commissars
>seeking access to the warm water ports of the Persian Gulf, today it is
>about laying oil and gas pipelines to the untapped petroleum reserves of
>Central Asia. According to testimony before the US House of Representatives
>in March 1999 by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation,
>Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan together have 15 billion
>barrels of proven oil reserves. The same countries also have proven gas
>deposits totaling not less than nine trillion cubic meters. Another study by
>the Institute for Afghan Studies placed the total worth of oil and gas
>reserves in the Central Asian republics at around US$3 trillion at last
>year's prices.
>
>Not only can Afghanistan play a role in hosting pipelines connecting Central
>Asia to international markets, but the country itself has significant oil
>and gas deposits. During the Soviets' decade-long occupation of Afghanistan,
>Moscow estimated Afghanistan's proven and probable natural gas reserves at
>around five trillion cubic feet and production reached 275 million cubic
>feet per day in the mid-1970s. But sabotage by anti-Soviet mujahideen
>(freedom fighters) and by rival groups in the civil war that followed Soviet
>withdrawal in 1989 virtually closed down gas production and ended deals for
>the supply of gas to several European countries.
>
>Major Afghan natural gas fields awaiting exploitation include Jorqaduq,
>Khowaja, Gogerdak, and Yatimtaq, all of which are located within 9
>kilometers of the town of Sheberghan in northrern Jowzjan province.
>
>Natural gas production and distribution under Afghanistan's Taliban rulers
>is the responsibility of the Afghan Gas Enterprise which, in 1999, began
>repair of a pipeline to Mazar-i-Sharif city. Afghanistan's proven and
>probable oil and condensate reserves were placed at 95 million barrels by
>the Soviets. So far, attempts to exploit Afghanistan's petroleum reserves or
>take advantage of its unique geographical location as a crossroads to
>markets in Europe and South Asia have been thwarted by the continuing civil
>strife.
>
>In 1998, the California-based UNOCAL, which held 46.5 percent stakes in
>Central Asia Gas (CentGas), a consortium that planned an ambitious gas
>pipeline across Afghanistan, withdrew in frustration after several fruitless
>years. The pipeline was to stretch 1,271km from Turkmenistan's Dauletabad
>fields to Multan in Pakistan at an estimated cost of $1.9 billion. An
>additional $600 million would have brought the pipeline to energy-hungry
>India.
>
>Energy experts in India, such as R K Pachauri, who heads the Tata Energy
>Research Institute (TERI), have long been urging the country's planners to
>ensure access to petroleum products from the Central Asian republics, with
>which New Delhi has traditionally maintained good relations. Other partners
>in CentGas included the Saudi Arabian Delta Oil Company, the Government of
>Turkmenistan, Indonesia Petroleum (INPEX), the Japanese ITOCHU, Korean
>Hyundai and Pakistan's Crescent Group.
>
>According to observers, one problem is the uncertainty over who the
>beneficiaries in Afghanistan would be - the opposition Northern Alliance,
>the Taliban, the Afghan people or indeed, whether any of these would benefit
>at all. But the immediate reason for UNOCAL's withdrawal was undoubtedly the
>US cruise missile attacks on Osama bin Laden's terrorism training camps in
>Afghanistan in August 1998, done in retaliation for the bombing of its
>embassies in Africa. UNOCAL then stated that the project would have to wait
>until Afghanistan achieved the "peace and stability necessary to obtain
>financing from international agencies and a government that is recognized by
>the United States and the United Nations".
>
>The "coalition against terrorism" that US President George W Bush is
>building now is the first opportunity that has any chance of making UNOCAL's
>wish come true. If the coalition succeeds, Raghavan said, it has the
>potential of "reconfiguring substantially the energy scenarios for the 21st
>century".
>
>(Inter Press Service)

-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu