Russian supremacy on pipeline control

With the oil sector's exploitation already shared between the Kazakh, Russian, American, Chinese and European companies what kind of competition should appear? In fact, what can you do when you have drilled your oil and gas if you can not transport and sell them in international markets? The real power in Central Asia belongs to the one who can control the evacuation ways of the black gold. So, in this field, Russia is the undisputed winner. Pipeline control is the new main key element of this new "Great Game" in which rifles and guns are substituted by an economic, politic and diplomatic competition between different states which have economic interests in Kazakhstan. For historical reasons Russia controls almost all the pipeline networks of the area and the country is very aware about the gigantesque power it possesses. Until today, most of the Kazakh oil and gas is still transported via the two main Russian pipelines: The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) and the Uzen-Atyrau-Samara pipeline.

With full Russian control over the pipelines (by moderate their volume and speed), the Kazakh republic tries now to diversify its hydrocarbon outlets. However, despite new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline project, supported by the USA, nothing has changed. Only the Chinese, who were ready to do everything to secure their energy demand, were aloud to build a very expensive project, the Atasu-Alankshu pipeline which has been operating since 2006. Concerning the other oil and gas exporters from Central Asia, few pipeline projects were presented such as the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline (TCGP), supported once again by the USA, but nothing moved because of the strong political and economic pressures coming from Moscow.

As a final word, we can say that the only real power in the region still belongs to Russia through its pipelines monopole. Despite the creation of a new transit way to China in 2006 it doesn't seem that actually someone can claims to remove the Russian Federation from its leading place in this new Central Asian "Great Game".

Plan of lecture:

1. Situation in Central Asia: the role and place of Kazakhstan in the region

Дата добавления: 2015-05-09