Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

On 5/04/2005 Bulgaria, Greece and Russia agreed to build a new trans-Balkan oil pipeline, which is expected to ease the pressure on the Bosporus when it starts operating in 2008.

More recently Bulgaria stated it will host US military forces in three bases, BulgarianDefense Minister Nikolai Svinarov was quoted by state news agency BTA as saying on Saturday.

Earlier this year, the top commander of US and NATO troops in Europe, General James Jones, said in Sofia that he would propose to the US Congress "four or five Bulgarian military facilities for use by US forces."

It is written in the Grand Game plan that Russia is to be contained, surrounded and apparently starved into submission by way of our controlling and stopping the flow of Russian oil.

These bases are used to either protect our pipelines or to hinder the flow of another country’s pipelines.

In November, a leader of the Azerbaijani parliament proposed that NATO form a special unit to protect the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline.
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Thus Russia reacts: Russia should respond to the move and modify its own defense policies in view of the deployment of US troops in countries such as Bulgaria.

Russia like China is under attack.

Belarus is also no champion of human rights, but from Washington's standpoint, the fact that its government is tightly bound to Moscow makes it the obvious candidate for a Ukraine-style "Orange Revolution" regime-change effort. That would complete the US encirclement of Russia on the west and of Russia's export pipelines to Europe, were it to succeed. Some 81% of all Russian oil exports today go to Western European markets.
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-Am

Bulgaria, Greece, Russia Sign Deal for Major Pipeline Project
02/05/2005

Bulgaria, Greece and Russia have agreed to build a new trans-Balkan oil pipeline, which is expected to ease the pressure on the Bosporus when it starts operating in 2008.

(Sofia News Agency, RIA Novosti - 15/04/05; AP, FT, BBC, AFX, VOA, BTA, Sofia News Agency, Athens News Agency, Macedonian Press Agency, Pravda, Bulgarian Government Web site - 12/04/05)

Following more than a decade of negotiations on the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline, Bulgaria, Greece and Russia signed a memorandum of co-operation on 12 April, paving the way for the launch of the project.

The development ministers of Bulgaria and Greece, Valentin Tserovski and Dimitris Sioufas, signed the document together with Russian Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko at a ceremony in Sofia.

"This is a very important first step for the implementation of this complex infrastructure project," Tserovski said.

The 522m-euro deal envisions the construction of a 285km pipeline that will carry Caspian crude oil from the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Bourgas to Alexandroupolis, on Greece's Aegean coast. The oil will be loaded at the Russian port of Novorossiysk and delivered via the Black Sea to Bourgas, where Bulgaria will build a 50m-tonne storage facility. It will then be piped to Alexandroupolis, to go on to Western Europe.

The pipeline, expected to start operating in 2008, will allow Russia to bypass Turkey's congested Bosporus, where oil tankers are often delayed for several days. Currently, about a third of Russian oil exports are shipped through the busy strait. The alternative route is expected to make Russian oil deliveries faster, safer and cheaper.

The pipeline will have a capacity of 700,000 barrels per day. The planned annual capacity for the initial stage of the project is 15m tonnes. That would eventually be increased to 24m tonnes in the second year and 35m tonnes in the third year, with an option for increasing it further to 50m tonnes of crude oil annually.

Initial talks on the project began in 1993, but failed to make headway quickly due to disagreements among the three countries over financial and ownership issues.

A study on the technical and economic parameters of the proposed project, conducted by the German company ILF in 1999, concluded that the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline would be the shortest, safest and financially efficient route.

"Agreement came after we shifted from a geopolitical to a market approach," Tserovski said.

Welcoming the signing of the political accord, Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis described it as a "historic agreement" setting the stage for the implementation of a project of great significance not only for the countries involved, but the entire region.

None of the three governments will provide funding for the project -- it will instead be financed by companies interested in running and exploiting the pipeline.

British oil company BP's joint Russian venture TNK-BP will act as project co-ordinator. Other partners, according to the media, include Greece's Hellenic Petroleum, US Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Russia's Lukoil and Rosneft, and Bulgaria's Technoexportstroy.

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2005/05/02/feature-03

US military bases in Bulgaria may lead to Russian defense policy change: report

www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-17 19:26:54


SOFIA, May 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Russian State Duma defense committee member Nikolai Bezborodov has said Russia may readjust its defense policies if the United States sets up military bases in Bulgaria and Romania and send troops there from elsewhere, Bulgaria's independent newspaper the Monitor reported on Tuesday.

Bezborodov said the eastward redeployment of US troops stationed in Europe will impose serious threats to Russia's national security.

Russia should respond to the move and modify its own defense policies in view of the deployment of US troops in countries such as Bulgaria.

Bulgaria will host US military forces in three bases, BulgarianDefense Minister Nikolai Svinarov was quoted by state news agency BTA as saying on Saturday.

"It remains still to be determined which bases are to be chosen,but so far we know that there will be three of them," Svinarov said.

US officials have said they could use Bulgarian sites to deploytroops on rotational training tours as part of a broader US strategy of shifting troops based in Europe further east.

Earlier this year, the top commander of US and NATO troops in Europe, General James Jones, said in Sofia that he would propose to the US Congress "four or five Bulgarian military facilities foruse by US forces."

Bulgaria joined NATO last year along with six other countries. Enditem



http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-05/17/content_2967299.htm