WASHINGTON, May 28 (UPI) -- While most Americans think of the Middle East as swimming in oil, not all nations there are blessed with abundant hydrocarbon resources. Among those lacking substantial petroleum reserves are Turkey and Israel, leaving both nations to scramble to meet their energy requirements by diversifying their import sources.
In addition to looking far afield for imports, Turkey is striving to position itself as an energy transport corridor, a position that meshes nicely with Washington's twin political policies of isolating Iran while lessening Europe's growing dependency on Russian hydrocarbons. In the 17 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West's one shining success in developing Caspian energy reserves has been Azerbaijan and its attendant Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. May 28 is the second anniversary of the BTC pipeline's first oil reaching Turkey's Mediterranean port, and the BTC is now slaking the world's oil thirst by transporting 1 million barrels per day. If expansion plans come to fruition, the pipeline's transport capacity could be increased to 1.6 million bpd by 2012-2013.
Besides enriching Azerbaijan, the $3.6 billion, 1,092 mile pipeline has provided a cash bonanza for Turkey in transit fees, as the pipeline traverses 669 miles of Turkish territory. On May 24 Energy and Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Guler told journalists that BTC transit revenues had earned Turkey $2 billion from transporting 378 million barrels of Azeri oil. Guler said, "We are proud to realize a project which was seen as a dream."
Ankara regards the BTC revenue stream as belated partial compensation for the estimated $40 billion in transit revenue, scrapped oil sales and port fees that Turkey lost from transiting Iraqi crude because of U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and following Operation Desert Storm. The sanctions, which lasted up to the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, permitted Iraqi oil shipments only under the U.N. "oil for food" program, established in 1995, along the 600-mile, 800,000 bpd Kirkuk-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline, Iraq's largest crude oil export line, and idled Ceyhan port.
The U.N. Security Council, under the "oil for food" program, required the majority of Iraqi oil be shipped from Ceyhan to permit Turkey to recoup transit fees, since the Kirkuk-Yumurtalik pipeline, which Turkey built in 1997 and which operated at about half its capacity in the 1990s after running at full potential during the Iran-Iraq war, was shut.
BTC links into one of the Mediterranean's largest oil facilities; besides BTC's Azeri exports, the port handles Iraqi oil from Kirkuk as well. Ceyhan contains seven storage tanks and a jetty capable of loading two Very Large Crude Carrier tankers of up to 300,000 tons. An official with Turkey's state pipeline company Botas called the pipeline network terminating at Ceyhan "the Silk Road of oil."
If BTC has provided an economic lifeline to Turkey, it has caused Azerbaijan's economy to soar; since its opening two years ago Azerbaijan is now one of the world's fastest-growing economies, with a 2007 growth rate of more than 29 percent, giving the Caspian nation a wealth currently estimated at $21 billion, growing at more than triple the rate of China's. The future in a world of record-high energy prices is even brighter, as BTC is projected to generate profits as high as $230 billion over the next two decades.
Baku's economic miracle is because of BTC and the foreign investment that it brought into the country. British Petroleum, a member of the BTC consortium, has a 30.1 percent share of BTC, exceeding the State Oil Co. of the Azerbaijan Republic, which owns 25 percent. Other Western investors include Chevron with 8.9 percent, Norway's StatoilHydro with 8.71 percent, Turkey's Turkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortakligi with 6.53 percent, Italy's Eni/Agip group and France's Total with 5 percent apiece, Japan's Itochu with 3.4 percent, Japan's Inpex company with 2.5 percent and the American Hess Corp. with 2.36 percent. It is notable that no Russian firms are involved in the project and that Western concerns receive 75 percent of BTC's revenues.
Turkey can only marvel at such riches, as its domestic production last year produced a mere 8.7 percent of the nation's crude oil and 2.6 percent of its natural gas needs. TPAO and foreign operators Royal Dutch/Shell and ExxonMobil account for the majority of Turkey's oil production. While TPAO currently pumps about 80 percent of Turkey's production, it's a proverbial drop in the bucket, at about 44,000 bpd vs. imports of 724,400 bpd.
Turkey's Finance Ministry estimates that a $1 increase in crude oil prices adds $530 million to Turkey's annual import bill. If economists' projections prove correct and prices rise to $150 or $200, then Turkey may see its annual oil imports bill increase to $50 billion to $60 billion, a figure almost twice as high as its 2007 total oil purchases. In such a harsh fiscal scenario, it is hardly surprising that Ankara is promoting any and all potential pipeline projects that might transit its territory.
Guler is not short of dreams himself; after discussing the fiscal benefits of the BTC pipeline to Turkey the minister concluded, "Now, the next projects are the Samsun-Ceyhan and Nabucco pipelines." The only unanswered question is where the gas and oil to fill the two projects will come from. As BTC took 13 years from conception to completion, perhaps Guler's reveries may yet come to pass; in the meantime, there are rising energy bills to pay. While one Turkish proverb notes, "A hungry hen dreams she is in the barley store," another notes, "Great patience is the key to joy." In Ankara's case, both seem to be true.
