Baku-Ceyhan

This is a pipeline project whose time has come. Whatever is required to effect Baku-Ceyhan as the Main Export Pipeline for Caspian oil must be done, and done as soon as possible. 

The situation is further compounded by major oil and gas deposits in Northern Iraq and Azerbaijan (Caspian Sea), as well as critically important and contentious pipeline routes such as Balor-Ceyhan and Baku-Supsa. The volatility of this region can be seen even today, with the deployment of Russian troops in Chechnya. Indeed the three states that make up the geostrategic unit of the South Caucasus, - Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, two of whom share borders with Turkey, will be directly impacted by the advancement of Russian forces in Dagestan and Chechnya. 

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and the South-Caucasus-Pipeline projects will be arranged in a 22-meter wide construction corridor for two parallel pipelines buried in a 2.2-meter deep trench. This alone illustrates the complexity of facilitating pipeline systems in regards of environmental issues and the complicated morphological mountainous relief. 

The traditional geotechnical survey is characterized by discrete information. It means that old survey methods cannot provide comprehensive data on the geological structure, substance composition and properties of the whole pipeline route. This principle is not observed in all the three main gas pipeline cases. The technical documentation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the South-Caucasus Pipeline system, and particularly of the North-South Caucasus Gas Pipeline does not include longitudinal geotechnical profiles of the route and the pipeline corridor in the geotechnical maps. Trial pits and boreholes that are arranged approximately 1,5-... 

Environmental and Social Impact Assessment. Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Georgia. Non-technical guiding summary. Project documentation for public advertising April 2002. 

Therefore, Russia takes as a heavy blow to its vital interests the pipeline projects Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) that are designed to carry alternative Azeri oil and gas in bypass of Russia through the Caucasus and Turkey to the west. Russia, driven by the desire to preserve its gas market share in Europe and hold under control the Caspian gas trans-boundary energy flows appears to be particularly negative to the South Caucasus Pipeline project. Russia offers to use its yet unloaded Blue Stream pipeline under the Black Sea for carrying Azeri gas to Turkey instead of building a new and expensive grid [7]. 

Due to the commence of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the Great Silk Route the amount of GHG emissions is expected to increase in the future years. 

The territory of Turkey became a link in a large-scale energy corridor that connected countries of this region. Gas-pipeline projects of Blue Flow going over the Black Sea bed and oil pipeline Baku-Tbilissi-Ceyhan may be an example of creation of a new framework for economic cooperation among Black Sea countries. Russia and Turkey are planning to extend the pipeline Blue Flow. 

In the beginning of 2000, constmction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main oil export pipeline began. It crossed territories of plague and tularemia natural foci. The pipeline s main stockholder, British Petroleum, contracted the NCDC and the S. Imamaliyev Republic AP Station (Baku, Azerbaijan) to carry out short-term, commercially-funded epi-zoological surveys of areas along the pipeline route. 

Figure 10.1 Villagers in Tetriskaro in Georgia meet in the construction corridor of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and its sister South Caucasus Gas Pipeline, to complain about how the heavy use of dynamite to shatter rock had also shattered their walls Source (Photo Platform)...

Amnesty International (2003) Human Rights on the Line The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline Project, London Amnesty International, www.amnesty.org.uk/ uploads/documents/doc 14538.pdf (accessed 20 June 2012). 

Pipelines Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (oil Caspian to Mediterranean Sea) Druzhba (oil southeast Russia to eastern Europe) China s West to East (gas) Trans-Alaska (oil) Gasoducto del Sur (proposed gas Venezuela to Argentina) Desertec (proposed solar North Africa to Europe)... 

O Lear, S. (2008). Oil Frontiers Local Perceptions of Export Pipelines The Case of Baku -Tbilisi - Ceyhan in Azerbaijan and Georgia. International Political Geography Colloquium Spaces of Politics - Concept and Scales. Reims. 

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