Replies to post #1743 on Foreign Correspondence

[otraque]

hmm, indeed--no way Russia i would think would want an independent country engulfing that rail system.

[Amaunet]

Because of events in Chechnya the Grozny pipeline apparently was closed in favor of the U.S. backed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. One of the primary reasons it seems that we are backing the Chechen rebels and thus responsible for the deaths of the Russian school children.
#msg-3953878
#msg-4005982

In October 1995, one of the oil pipeline consortiums (Azerbaijan International Operating Company) took a major step when it announced preliminary plans to exploit the Azeri oil fields by sending oil through two different pipelines in the lands of the former Soviet Union. The decision included the following provisions: By the end of 1996, oil was to be pumped through an existing pipeline that crosses Russian territory and runs from Azerbaijan to the Russian city of Novorossiisk on the Black Sea. This pipeline, which runs underground through the Chechen capital city of Grozny, is being upgraded. At a later date, oil would be pumped through a second pipeline that crosses Azerbaijan and Georgia, arriving at the Georgian port of Batumi in Ajara. An old pipeline along this route is to be rehabilitated or rebuilt.
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:eUHeHc1oCMkJ:www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/ajara.htm+....

Historically, energy from the Caspian has gone north, only north, and then from Russia into world markets. In 1995 a consortium of international companies decided to build two pipelines from Azerbaijan. The western line to Supsa, Georgia, opened in April 1999. The pipeline to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossisk opened, and then closed because of events in Chechnya. The countries and the energy companies operating in the region believe that they need to have a multiple pipeline system. After long negotiations, in November 1999 Turkmenistan, Azarbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and the United States agreed on the development of a commercial pipeline to sell gas from Turkmenistan through Georgia and Azerbaijan to Turkey and on to Europe. The pipeline will bring the Caspian Sea's oil to the Mediterranean without crossing Russia and Iran. The Turkish export route for Azerbaijan's huge reserves of oil and natural gas is aimed at reducing the former Soviet republic's dependency on Moscow. This deal represented a long-term strategic triumph over Russia's historic aspirations and interests in Central Asia. The Chechen War was the best argument in favor of the agreement on an oil pipeline from Baku to Turkey as an alternative to a Russian pipeline, paradoxically confirming the Russian assumption that the United States benefits from Chechnya because it wants to bring the Caucasus under its influence.
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:3G7qLfxe6fcJ:www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/chechnya2.....