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2022-06-04 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
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Is a Caspian alternative to Russian gas possible?
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Pavel Kukhmirov
[Sevastopol] Gazprom will suspend gas supplies to energy companies in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands due to non-payment for April. Deliveries have been stopped for Shell Energy Europe ( Germany), Orsted ( Denmark ), and GasTerra ( Netherlands ), since Gazprom has not received payments from them under the new scheme in rubles. At the same time , the German company Uniper announced that it had made a payment for gas for the first time under the new scheme proposed by Moscow.
Against the backdrop of what is happening in Europe in particular and in the Western world in general, the question of alternative sources of gas and ways to obtain it is periodically raised. The Caspian region in this sense could indeed become an important alternative supplier of energy resources to Europe. But, at a minimum, Brussels itself is pursuing an extremely passive and politicized energy strategy here.
After the collapse of the USSR, there was a feeling that the Caspian had the potential of an alternative to the Persian Gulf in terms of its hydrocarbon reserves. But the arrival of the world's leading oil companies there and the development of new projects showed that such estimates were too optimistic.
As it turned out, hydrocarbon reserves turned out to be much more modest, and the cost of production and transportation is much higher than expected. But Western countries managed to squeeze out Russia and gain access to the largest projects in the region, such as Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli and Shah Deniz (Azerbaijan), as well as Tengiz, Karachaganak, Kashagan (Kazakhstan) . In addition, they are involved in the construction of strategically important alternative pipelines "Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan" and "Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum" bypassing Russia.
But they limited themselves to this: the flow of investments dried up, and new ambitious projects (like the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline from Turkmenistan, bypassing Russia) remained on paper. As a result, Azerbaijan, without the EU, independently implemented the projects of the Trans-Anatolian and Trans-Adriatic pipelines, bringing Azerbaijani gas to the market of southern Europe.
The Ukrainian crisis found the situation exactly like this.
Kazakhstan's projects in the surrounding regions are mainly focused on oil. For the most part, they are tied to contractual obligations with Russia and China, so they do not count.
Azerbaijan, after the launch of the Shah Deniz project and reaching the design capacity of the offshore fields Karabakh and Umid, is already supplying the maximum possible volumes of natural gas: up to 10 billion cubic meters to Turkey and about 10 billion cubic meters to Bulgaria, Greece, Albania and Italy. A slight increase in exports is possible by optimizing the management of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and additional investment in the deepwater part of the Gunashli project.
In addition, additional volumes of gas to the south of the EU could come from Turkmenistan, but the huge investments in infrastructure necessary for the underwater Trans-Caspian pipeline and the increase in production are unlikely to be approved by the European Commission even in the current conditions.
It is possible to add several billion cubic meters per year after the launch of the Azerbaijani-Turkmen border field Dostulug. Theoretically, it is also possible to connect the existing Turkmen fields to the pipeline infrastructure of Azerbaijan. But this also requires active intervention and investment, and Brussels takes the position of an outside observer.
And most importantly: the most important and most serious potential resource of the Caspian could be the unblocking of Iranian exports. But here, at a minimum, it is necessary to restore the nuclear deal with Iran and, most importantly, fulfill the obligations of the Western countries themselves to unfreeze Iranian finances and lift sanctions against Iran. But Europe is not its own mistress here. And few people care about her interests.
We can sum up the following: of course, the Caspian could become a serious alternative to Russia, but for a number of reasons it is impossible to implement this now and will not be possible for a very long time.
Pavel Kukhmirov is a former Donetsk militiaman and a current resident of Rostov, Russia. His call sign is "Shakespeare." 
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Posted by badanov 2022-06-04 00:00||
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