Tag: Energy

  • Turkey, Azerbaijan gas talks stall

    Turkey, Azerbaijan gas talks stall

    ANKARA, Turkey, Sept. 24 (UPI) — Talks between Azerbaijan and Turkey over price mechanisms and gas supplies through the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline have stalled, officials said Wednesday.

    A contract for Turkey to receive natural gas from western routes runs out in three years, leaving Ankara scrambling to secure additional supplies. The price offered from Ankara for supplies from the BTE pipeline, also known as the South Caucasus pipeline, was not acceptable to Baku, the Turkish Daily News said Wednesday.

    Turkey argues the price mechanism is justified because of the relatively direct route of the pipeline.

    Ankara had looked at the 430-mile pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey through Georgia as a means to shore up its natural gas reserves. The pipeline has pumped gas to Turkey since 2007.

    Baku would have to hike its domestic gas price and rely on Russian gas if it were to funnel additional gas reserves through the pipeline.

    Officials with BP, a major shareholder in the BTE consortium, said the Turkish offer was too low and favored pressure from Baku to ramp up the price.

  • Turkey accepts Russian bid for nuclear

    Turkey accepts Russian bid for nuclear

    ANKARA, Turkey, Sept. 25 (UPI) — The only firm to respond to Turkey’s tender for bids for a nuclear plant will be assessed.

    Only one firm, Russia-based Atomstroyexport, submitted an offer for the construction and operation of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, Anatolia news agency reported.

    The Turkish Electricity Trading and Contracting Co. Inc. held its fourth tender process in Ankara Wednesday for the construction and operation of a nuclear power plant in the Akkuyu region of the southern province of Mersin.

    In the first three tenders, TETC received no bids and was not able to move forward with its controversial plans for a nuclear plant.

    After receiving an offer from Atomstroyexport, Turkey’s Atomic Energy Agency will assess the offer and review the company. If Turkey accepts the bid, it will move on to Turkey’s Council of Ministers for their approval.

    Atomstroyexport, AECL Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Suez Tractebel, Unit Investment N.V., Hattat Holding-Hema Ortak Girisim Grubu and Ak Enerji all submitted closed envelopes, but only Russian Atomstroyexport’s envelope included an offer.

  • Gazprom ups gas price for Armenia

    Gazprom ups gas price for Armenia

    MOSCOW, Sept. 25 (UPI) — Russian energy giant Gazprom will increase the price of gas exported to Armenia by 40 percent beginning in April 2009, officials said Thursday.

    Karen Karapetian with the joint Russian-Armenian natural gas pipeline project ArmRosGazprom said starting April 1 the price for gas would increase from $110 per 1,000 cubic meters to $154.

    Another price increase, to $200 per 1,000 cubic meters, is scheduled to go into effect in 2010, and in 2011, Gazprom will peg the price to conditions in Europe, the Azeri Press Agency said.

    Earlier, Azerbaijan denied reports there were plans to alter the route of the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline through Armenian territory, citing a territorial dispute between the two countries.

    On Tuesday, however, Iran pledged to meet Armenian winter energy demands through a $220 million, 87-mile natural gas pipeline.

    “Iran will pump 3 million cubic meters of gas to Armenia during this winter,” said Reza Kasaei Zadeh, director of the Iranian Gas Export Co.

  • Work on Iran-Armenia pipeline concludes

    Work on Iran-Armenia pipeline concludes

    YEREVAN, Armenia, Sept. 12 (UPI) — Construction on a natural gas pipeline from Iran to Armenia to transport 81 billion cubic feet of gas has been concluded, Armenian energy officials said Friday.

    Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsisyan said the pipeline is important to secure energy supplies for his country, noting testing would commence in the coming days, Trend Capital News said.

    “The opening of the Iranian-Armenian pipeline will guarantee the energy safety of Armenia,” he said. “Armenia will receive from 2.3 billion to 2.5 billion cubic meters of gas from Tehran through this pipeline a year.”

    Movsisyan added the Armenian government was entering into trilateral talks with Iran and Russia on the construction of an oil refinery and examinations of a new oil pipeline.

    The planned $2.5 billion Armenian refinery would have the capacity to produce around 50 million barrels of oil per year.

  • Russia, Armenia discuss nuclear power

    Russia, Armenia discuss nuclear power

    YEREVAN, Armenia, Sept. 11 (UPI) — Armenia’s president met with Russia’s nuclear chief to discuss cooperation on nuclear energy.

    Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan discussed uranium exploration in Armenia as well as other areas of cooperation during his meeting with the director general of the Russian Atomic Energy Agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, Armenia’s state-run news agency ArmInfo reported.

    The two leaders discussed existing partnerships and each country’s varying expertise in fields related to the nuclear industry.

    They also reportedly discussed the operation of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant, which Kiriyenko said is operating safely and reliably so far.

  • Possibilities for improving Azeri-Armenian relations

    Possibilities for improving Azeri-Armenian relations

    By JOHN C.K. DALY

    WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 (UPI) — Last month’s military conflict between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia has cast a harsh spotlight on Western assumptions about exporting Azeri oil through neighboring Georgia and Turkey.

    While the military confrontation focused Western media attention on tensions between Russia and Georgia, Azerbaijan itself remains gripped by a “frozen conflict” dating back to even before the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan’s clashes with Armenia over the enclaves of Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhchivan broke out in February 1988; by the time a cease-fire was signed in May 1994 ending active hostilities, thousands had been killed and wounded, while hundreds of thousands of refugees were created on both sides and the Armenian armed forces were left occupying swaths of Azeri territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven neighboring districts. The volatility of the situation was instrumental in the eventual decisions of the Western consortium members to build their proposed export pipeline for Azeri oil through Georgia rather than utilize a shorter route transiting Armenia.

    Now, however, there are some indications that there might yet again be movement toward a resolution of the issue. On Wednesday, after meeting with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev expressed hope that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue eventually could be settled. Gul’s comments had a strong economic undertone, as he told reporters, “If we settle this conflict, which I hope we will manage to do, all countries of the region will develop much faster.”

    A resolution of the disputes between Azerbaijan and Armenia could give Western investors yet another export route for Caspian energy, an issue of growing concern among Western investors because of Russia’s increasing assertiveness in the region, combined with the fragility of export routes through Georgia, as demonstrated by the recent conflict. The prize is certainly tempting: The Caspian’s 143,244 square miles and attendant coastline are estimated to contain as much as 250 billion barrels of recoverable oil, boosted by more than 200 billion barrels of potential reserves, quite aside from up to 328 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas. From the outset Washington’s policy has been to construct, if possible, multiple export pipeline routes, bypassing both Russia and charter “axis of evil” member Iran.

    Because of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, however, export routes to Armenia were never considered as a viable option in 1994 after then-Azeri President Geidar Aliyev signed the “Contract of the Century” with Western energy concerns to develop Azerbaijan’s Caspian Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli fields. Consequently, the first Western export oil pipeline not under Russian control went westward through Georgia. In 1999 Baku’s export options broadened with the opening of the $600 million, 515 mile, 100,000-barrel-per-day Baku-Supsa pipeline. Azerbaijan was finally able to free itself completely from reliance on Russian export pipelines when, in May 2006, the $3.6 billion, 1,092-mile, million-barrel-per-day Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline opened.

    The Armenians and Azeris sought to influence Washington’s decisions on the region; political agitation by the Armenian-American lobby resulted in the inclusion in 1992 of Section 907 in the U.S. Freedom Support Act, which banned any direct U.S. aid to the Azerbaijani government as punishment for its blockade of Armenia. It was only in January 2002 that President George W. Bush waived the legislation as a reward for Azeri support of the United States following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

    The Bush administration, in one of its first foreign policy initiatives, attempted to break the diplomatic impasse between the two Caucasian nations. In April 2001, even before the waiver of Section 907, Secretary of State Colin Powell’s first major foreign initiative was to try to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute during a summit in Key West, Fla., where he met with Azeri President Geidar Aliyev and Armenian President Robert Kocharyan. But the meetings, which were held by the Office for Security and Cooperation in Europe Minsk Group co-chairs France, Russia and United States, proved fruitless.

    There now seems to be a genuine chance for breaking the diplomatic logjam, especially as Turkey and Armenia are slowly edging toward restoring relations, as well, in the wake of last week’s “soccer diplomacy,” which saw Gul fly to Yerevan to attend a Turkish-Armenian football match, where he held talks with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

    Gul is convinced that new opportunities have opened for settling the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. He pragmatically informed journalists that a resolution of the issue could allow all countries of the region to get involved in major energy transportation projects, noting, “If the mood of cooperation prevails in the region over hostility, it will serve the interests of all countries in the Caucasus.” Ankara is certainly thinking big; Turkish Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Hilmi Guler, currently in Baku to attend a conference on “oil and gas potential in Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan” organized in Azerbaijan, held out optimism that one of the West’s most cherished projects, the Nabucco pipeline to bring Azeri natural gas westward, would go forward, telling reporters, “Turkey will definitely finalize the Nabucco project.”

    Turkey is also pressing to resolve the Russian-Georgian dispute; on Sept. 2 Gul telephoned Bush, whom he informed about Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proposal for a Caucasus Stability Platform to restore peace and stability to the region. Rather than unilaterally pushing military aid to Georgia, Washington ought to listen closely to Turkey’s diplomatic initiatives, especially if it wants to prevent any further checkmates to its policies of developing Caspian energy projects: The Kremlin is less likely to feel threatened by a friendly soccer match than U.S. naval warships sailing in the Black Sea.