Petropolitics at heart of Russia-Georgia clash

Petropolitics at heart of Russia-Georgia clash
Oil-pipeline routes, market leverage make struggle a 'battle for energy.'
By David R. Francis
from the August 18, 2008 edition

In both geopolitical and economic terms, the United States appears a loser in the Russia-Georgia conflict.

If the pipeline crossing Georgia, bringing approximately a million barrels of Caspian oil a day to the West, remains shut down for much longer, it could result in higher oil prices.

"We could see $4 a gallon gasoline again," warns Edward Yardeni, an American consulting economist.

The 1,100-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline provides only about 1 percent of the global demand for oil. But, as Prof. Michael Klare of Amherst College notes: "There's not a lot of spare capacity" in the world.

In the long-running struggle for control of Caspian oil and gas and influence in the ex-Soviet states of that region, the clash has been a blow to US clout.

"The Russians come out of this as winning this round," says Professor Klare. "They are the power brokers in this part of the world…. But there will be more skirmishes to come."

Klare, author of "Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy," sees the conflict as "not a battle for democracy," as portrayed by Washington. "It was a battle for energy," he says.

Oil reserves underneath the Caspian Sea are believed to be huge, perhaps as much as 200 billion barrels. That compares with the estimated 260 billion barrels in Saudi Arabia...cont'd

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0816/p14s01-cogn.html

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Just Bidness

What we've invested in that plan and hoped to get from it?
And might the billion dollars Biden wants to give Georgia be part of the cost of losing?


Dollars and Sense (or nonsense) Of It: Revenues expected from the Georgian pipeline
http://imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2004/wp04209.pdf



Georgia's oil pipeline is key to U.S. support
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/09/MNDG127U55.DTL



War Casts Doubts On Pipeline
http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=26851

...The war with Georgia could backfire on Russia by creating difficulties for its own project to supply Europe with gas, South Stream. The project’s partners, Gazprom and Italy’s Eni, have enlisted the support of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece as transit countries for their route.

The initial stretch of the pipeline would cross the Black Sea, leaving Russia the task of winning approval from NATO member Turkey or Western-leaning Ukraine.

These countries could deny permission for the pipeline to cross their territory in an attempt to punish Russia for its military campaign in Georgia, Baev said. “One could expect movements in that direction,” he said.

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One of the failings of our system is we aren't really told how the money collected from us is used.
Transparency is myth, not a reality. Propaganda is what we get instead.
We aren't treated as a contributing partner or have a voice in those decisions. We are simply expected to give our blood and money toward endeavors that may or may not be deemed by us to be to our ultimate benefit or a reflection of our values as a country.