Britannia Radio

Oil Knows No Nationality
From Our Baku Correspondent
9-1-8

 

1. Our NATO ally Turkey has been buying large quantities of natural gas from Iran since 2001, (about 12 million cubic meters a day) and on 14 August the Presdient of Iran, Ahmedinejad, was invited to Istanbul to meet with Turkey's President Gul. Israel quickly issued a protest note, but to no real effect. During the Turkey - Iran summit it was apparently agreed that sales of Iranian natural gas to Turkey would be increased from 12 to 19 million m3 per day, due to "instability" in Georgia.   2. Georgia, since a Russia gas pipeline explosion in January, 2006 has been buying natural gas from Iran. The initial reports back in early 2006 stated that Georgia had agreed to purchased 4 million m3 of Iranian natural gas per day, with the gas transiting through Azerbaijan. Since then a pall of silence has fallen on this issue, understandably. A good question for the U.S. State Department; why is the U.S. so actively supporting a country that appears to be trading with Iran on an ongoing basis, a country that the Pentagon has accused of arming Islamic militants that attack and kill U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq? Interestingly enough, Israel was also a close friend to the Georgian Saakashvili regime, and must have known about Georgia's gas purchases from Iran, but basically kept silent, why?   3. Armenia has just recently agreed with Iran to construct a natural gas pipleline from Tabriz, Iran to Armenia's capitol Yerevan. The pipeline is planned to eventually transport about 1.1 million m3 of natural gas from Iran to Armenia daily. Armenia will, in return, eventually supply daily some 3 million kw/h to Iran, (most likely using a Soviet era atomic energy plant, which is in very poor repair, to supply the energy). Armenia, although in a military alliance with Russia, and having several Russian military bases on its soil, continues to receive tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars annually. So, the U.S. is actively supporting a country in a military alliance with Russia, soon to be buying gas from, and selling electricity to, Iran. Perhaps the U.S. State Department would care to comment about this?   4. Since the hostilities in Georgia basically cut off rail connections from Azerbaijan to Georgia's Black Sea coast ports, the BP operated giant Sangachal Oil Terminal in Azerbaijan has been used as a staging area for shipments of crude oil from Azerbaijan to Iran, (the shipments are sent to the northern Iranian port of Neka, and a short while later a similar amount of crude oil, minus transaction fees, is made available at Iran's Khark island in the Persian Gulf, what is known as a swap in - swap out deal). Although initial reports state that AIOC, (AIOC is a BP operated consortium of oil companies, share holding members of which are ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, BP, Statoil, Azerbaijan's state oil company, and others) crude oil is not being swapped out through Iran, and the crude oil coming from the Sangachal Terminal is coming from a special "Azeri" section of the terminal, it is currently difficult to ascertain exactly who's crude is being swapped out through Iran at the current time. However, when the BP operated Baku - Tbilisi - Ceyhan, (BTC) pipeline reopened by 22 August after having been damaged in an explosion and fire on 5 August in Turkey, (PKK activists were blamed) it was most likely that at least the lion's share, if not all of AIOC's crude oil production was again being routed through the BTC pipeline, (so it may indeed be only Azeri State oil company crude oil that is being swapped out through Iran). Israel has also remained remarkably silent about this.   No one should be that surprised by these recent turns of events, however, as during the PM Blair term in office approximately USD 700 million in oil industry equiment sales from the U.K. to Iran was approved by the U.K. government, (this did erupt into a public scandal, however briefly) even as U.K. troops were battling supposedly Iranian backed militants around Basra in the south of Iraq.   So, is Iran really the "evil" enemy that we have been lead to believe, or simply another convenient diversion while the oil and armaments industries get on with their business?