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Weekly UpdatesThe Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil and the Baghdad government are competing for a major natural gas pipeline to reach the EU through Turkey. But whereas the KRG believes its venture is relatively shorter and less complicated, Baghdad's project is to pipe the gas from the predominantly-Sunni province of Anbar, where the giant Akkas gas field is located, to Syria and Turkey.
The Shi'ite theocracy of Iran is trying to export natural gas to the EU through central Iraq, Syria and Turkey. But Tehran's project depends on two crucial developments: (1) a deal with the US over its nuclear ambitions and the future of the Greater Middle East (GME) - which should not be too difficult if a stand-off over a disputed June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad is resolved in favour who want to respond favourably to President Barack Obama's offer of dialogue for "mutual interests" (see news25IrnPresElctJun22-09); and (2) a radical change of policy in Iran which may put Tehran on collision course with Moscow.
Kremlin/Putin-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom has just given the EU what amounts to an ultimatum: Back its Nord Stream which is to supply Northern Europe with 55 BCM/y of gas and its South Stream to give Southern Europe 62 BCM/y; overwise, Gazprom will shift its huge gas potentials to the East.
The problem is that Brussels is dragging its feet over the Nabucco project to pipe 31 BCM/y of Caspian and GME gas. With Iranian and Iraqi supplies - as well as potential supplies from Qatar - Nabucco could ultimately carry over 100 BCM/y to the EU. In early 2008, Iranian Petroleum Minister Gholam-Hussein Nozari said Tehran had a target for Iran to produce 1 BCM/day of gas. Kuwait is trying to persuade Qatar to have a huge gas pipeline to the EU to pass through Bahrain, its own territory, Iraq and Turkey.
Things have been turning bad for Iraq in recent weeks, however, particularly over the issue of Kirkuk in the north and Basra in the south. Both of these petroleum-rich areas are becoming flash-points in a new cycle of violence which has affected the other parts of Iraq. These are getting more complicated with renewed warnings from Iran's Shi'ite theocracy to hit the US in Iraq (as explained in Part 38 in ood5BasraKirkukMay4-09, fap6Irq3rdForceJun15-09 & news24LebJun15-09).
US Behind Nabucco, Arctic Race & Turkey's UNSC Presidency: Obama has continued the geo-strategy of the former administration of Republican President George W. Bush in backing the Nabucco project and any other schemes which would diversify OECD and NATO energy sources and lessen their dependence on Russia. In Moscow, however, PM Vladimir Putin has been warning in recent months that the next Global Cold War between Russia and the West will be over energy supplies and, among other things, ownership of energy-rich parts of the world contested by both.
One such case in point other than Nabucco is the Arctic seabed, where Russia was the first to plant a flag in 2007 and in 2001 the first to submit a claim of the area to the UN - though both moves had no legal consequence. The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea set a May 13, 2009, deadline for states to stake their claims to vast areas of the continental shelf that lie beyond their existing 200-mile "exclusive economic zones"; and 48 states - including Britain, Canada, Denmark, and Norway - submitted claims to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, with dozens more having made preliminary filings. States which missed the deadline risked losing any future claim.
Russia's submission for the Arctic was contested by Canada, Denmark, Norway and even the US, which had not ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty. Washington told the UN the Russian claim contained "major flaws". The UN commission advised Russia to present a "revised submission" on the Arctic - which Moscow did not do by May 13.
Significantly on May 13 Russia issued its new national security strategy in which it said rivalry over claims to the Arctic's untapped oil and gas reserves could tip into wars along its borders within a decade. It said: "In a competition for resources, problems that involve the use of military force cannot be ruled out". The Times of London on May 14 said: "Moscow must sheathe its sabre before the Arctic turns into a colonial scramble. Rivalry between the five countries (America, Denmark which is Greeland's sovereign power, Canada, Norway & Russia) had already been swelling before Russia raised the stakes two years ago by planting a titanium flag 21/2 miles beneath the North Pole - and with it, a blatant pre-emptive claim to the resources under the ice cap. The prize may be worth fighting for: a quarter of the world's oil reserves (plus 30% of the world's gas reserves) are thought to lie north of the Arctic Circle. But that does not mean it should be fought over What the Arctic urgently needs is a fleet of lawyers, not a fleet of gunboats".
Moscow's UN envoy Nikolai Patrushev, who in May chaired the UNSC, once flew to the North Pole to plant a Russian flag. He was in charge of the FSB, the federal security service, when Putin was president and created a special Arctic Directorate in 2004 to advance Moscow's interests in the region.
"This is really absurd", a top-ranking US energy official tells APS, as "Moscow can ill-afford another global cold war". He says: "The Russians seem to be short-sighted If [and when] global warming is to cause the Arctic ice to melt, the warming of Siberia would make Russia itself a different country. It would gain huge resource opportunities [previously out of reach] far more attractive and easier to exploit" [than the ridges of the Arctic seabed]". The Times on June 14 noted that the US Navy had 53 nuclear attack submarines, against Russia's 21.
It is interesting to note that the UNSC in June is chaired by Turkey, a Sunni NATO power backed by the US and intensely lobbying for the Nabucco project. The US man for Eurasian energy is Ambassador Richard Morningstar who had been in this position before Bush won the US presidency in late 2000. Morningstar on June 4 was in Ankara and met with Turkey's new Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, the man trying to mediate between the KRG and Baghdad over the Kurdish plan to feed Nabucco with natural gas being developed in the north (see survey of Iraq in gmt20IraqGasExpMay18-09).
This shows to what extent the US under Obama is pursuing both Nabucco and GME peace, of which an Arab-Israeli settlement would be the core. A US-Iran deal would be possible if Tehran can prove what it has repeatedly said, that its nuclear plans are for peaceful purposes.
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