Finally it has happened: Europe has been saved from Russia. Russian will not be able to blackmail the old world. That is how many people are evaluating the policy of the South Caucasus that the Obama administration’s allies in Europe signed in Baku, Azerbaijan: “the agreement of the century” to develop the Shah Deniz gas field.
On December 17, 2013, an agreement was signed to authorize “Stage 2” gas field development at the Shah Deniz gas field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. The agreement was signed by the president of SOCAR (the State Standard Oil Company of Azerbaijan) Rovnag Abdullayev, and the president of BP in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, Gordon Birrell.
The project cost is $ 25 billion. The total gas reserves of the Shah Deniz field are estimated at $1.2 trillion. Beginning in 2019, the plan is to produce 16 billion cubic meters of gas annually, of which six billion will be delivered to Turkey and ten billion to Southern Europe.
The Shah Deniz Project not only opens an Azeri gas route to Europe. To deliver gas supplies to Europe, piping the length of 3.5 thousand kilometers will be built. The South Caucasus gas pipeline will be expanded, and the Trans Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will be built. Azerbaijan also signed a memorandum of understanding on delivering future gas supplies to Albania, Croatia and Montenegro.
Note that during the ceremony there was also signed an agreement to extend the contract for the development of Shah Deniz gas field until 2048. It was also decided to increase the equity of SOCAR and BP to 16.7% and 28.8%, respectively, in Shah Deniz and the South Caucasus pipeline. This increase was due to SOCAR’s acquisition of a 6.7% share of the Norwegian Statoil. BP acquired another 3.3% in Statoil. Thus, Statoil’s equity participation in the project declined to 15.5%. Other members of the Shah Deniz consortium field development are LUKoil 10%, NICO (an Iranian company, 10%), Total (10%) and TPAO (a Turkish company, 9%).
Loud applause. We are all happy: Europe is finally freed from dependence on Russian energy.
However, there is a small problem in the numbers. There is that ten percent that is owned by the oil company of the Islamic Republic of Iran, NICO.
Of course, the British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who was on a visit to Azerbaijan in order to participate in the signing ceremony of the final investment agreement on the second phase of the Shah Deniz project, was very excited about this event. He said that the signing of this agreement was great news for the UK and BP.
In Baku, the European Energy Commission called the treaty the “main stage” in the EU’s strategy to diversify gas supplies.
Euro Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said that “the southern gas corridor” will eventually be able to provide 20% of the EU’s gas needs.
Turkey, meanwhile, is going to increase its supply of Iranian gas through a new gas compressor station near the Turkish province of Erzincan Chayyrly.
Against the backdrop of these efforts, Ankara planned purchases of natural gas from northern Iraq and entered into active discussion about the pipeline project aimed at transporting Iranian gas to Europe. Turkey has set a new goal: to combine these two energy initiatives with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP).
Thus is created a powerful energy resource of the three suppliers, and Turkey’s status as an energy bridge to Europe is made even stronger.
The success of Ankara’s efforts is paying not only economic but also political dividends.
Turkey has become Europe “insurance policy” in case the relationship between the EU and Russia changes. In addition, the European Union is now more interested in discussing a visa-free policy for a country in which democratic forces are battling against Islamization.
The Shah-Deniz agreement would have suffered from a bill proposed in the House of Representatives by Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) that would have banned any company from doing business with Iran’s oil and gas sector. However, this did not happen. The European Union, the Obama Administration, and the friends of Iran and Turkey in both Europe and the U.S. did all that they could to make sure that the bill would not pass.
Iran still has its share. It is only ten percent, but given current realities, the Islamic Republic has emerged victorious.
After the removal of the sanctions, Iran continues to enrich uranium, which will lead to the creation of nuclear weapons. The Iranians will also increase pressure on other members of the consortium to increase their equity participation.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davitoglu said during his recent visit to Yerevan, Armenia that “the expulsion of the Armenians in 1915 was inhuman, and Turkey has never supported these measures.”
Following the logic of the latest developments, can it be possible to surmise that in Yerevan Davitoglu was really talking about transporting Iranian oil? When relations between Iran and Turkey were cold, the transport of Iranian crude oil through Armenia to Turkey was unthinkable. But now that the positions of the U.S., the UK and some members of the European Union on Iran and Turkey are all synchronized together, why not put pressure on Armenia to force her to agree to the wording about the “expulsion of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire,” i.e., not the “genocide of the Armenians”? This would open Armenian territory for a short route of Iranian oil and gas to Turkey.
Remember how the Turkish government pressed Israeli leaders to apologize for battling the terrorists of the Mavi Marmara flotilla. Many countries together with Turkey also pressured the leadership of the Jewish state. After that, Armenia, like Georgia, is a piece of cake for Turkey and Iran.
The lie has always been and remains one of the main weapons for the leaders of the Islamic world. The Turks do not recognize that fact that more than a million Armenians were killed, and others were exiled. Davitoglu wants to prove to the world that the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey differ in action. However, the fact is that Erdogan and his government want to restore this empire and Islamic rule.
Armenia, Georgia: these countries are surrounded by the Islamic belt. Iran and Turkey know that mujahideen are based in the North Caucasus, and sometimes in those countries themselves. They, as well as strong armies of those two states, can make these Christian countries go against their conscience. So it was with the recognition of the Palestinian Authority at the United Nations, when Georgia voted under U.S. pressure in favor of raising the status of the Palestinian observer delegation.
In addition, we see that the leadership of the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, and NATO support the Islamic ambitions of Iran and Turkey. When Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are denied entry into the UK for their support for Israel, while Iran and Turkey, which have grossly violated all basic human rights, enjoy the support of the leading nations of the Western world, we can only conclude that Islamic diplomacy, Islamic intelligence agencies, and Islamic money have won out over common sense.
Filling their pockets has become more important to them than the truth.