The Caspian basin, bordered by Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, harbors billions of barrels of proven oil reserves and over 230 billion barrels of potential reserves. At current high oil prices in the world market, the total market value of that oil could exceed $25 trillion. The sea also may hold up to 300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Although, most of the oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea region have not been exploited yet, the region is the focus of the international community due to its estimated wealth of oil and gas reserves. According to some estimates, combined with Russia’s resources, by 2010 the region could supply up to one half of the energy resources now provided by the Middle East.
Until 1991, Iran and the former Soviet Union made Caspian Sea a freely navigated inland sea, whose marine resources were to be shared equally by both. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan are now laying claims over both the marine and oil resources, resulting in enlarged tensions among all five claimants.
As the legal disputes on the demarcation of the Caspian Sea still divide states in the region, the choice of routes that the pipelines could follow to transport oil and gas from the Caspian Sea to various market outlets, becomes of paramount importance. The United States and most countries in the West would not like to see this newly discovered natural wealth falling into the hands of Russia and Iran alone. These two countries, particularly Iran, can provide the most secure, and thus financially sound and easily constructed routes from the Caspian Sea to the world markets. The US and its allies consider alternate pipeline routes to the Western markets mainly through Georgia and Turkey.
My paper will analyze potential Trans-Caspian pipelines from Central Asia to the Caucasus and further to Europe. In particular, it will analyze a possible trans-Caspian gas pipeline from Turkmenistan and an oil-pipeline from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan. It will examine the risks and obstacles involved in the construction of these pipelines and assess its geopolitical impact on the balance of power in the Caspian region. It will also examine the possibility of increased American influence as a result of the construction of Trans-Caspian gas pipeline in the region and how this change in the balance of power would affect other regional powers such as Russia, Turkey, China, and Iran and what would be their subsequent reactions.
Additional questions my paper is going to answer:
·         How the current situation in Afghanistan will affect the US energy policy in the Caspian region as a whole?
·         What are the prospects of the Russian-US and Iranian-US differences with regard to their respective energy security interests? If the US prolongs its stay in the region, what sort of perceived threats does it pose to the Russian and Iranian influence and economic and political objectives in the Caspian region?