Chechnya, Caspian Energy & the Great Game

CHECHNYA NSFW Corp (Pando) Washington’s highly-politicized position on Chechen separatists dangerously misguided policy in which Chechen radicals have been protected and nurtured neocon-fronted US geopolitical strategy in Chechnya rank cynicism of US policy in Chechnya Why would so many sleazy neocons — Islam-bashers, terror-mongers and Cold War Reaganites — support armed Chechen separatists? Bill Kristol, James Woolsey, Frank Gaffney, Richard Perle, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and over 100 others put together the K Street lobby powerhouse ... "American Committee for Peace in Chechnya" (ACPC) Among the "distinguished" names were notorious Islamophobes Frank Gaffney and Michael Ledeen; Jon Podhoretz’s parents, Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter, along Jon’s brother-in-law Eliot Abrams, a convicted felon over his role in Iran-Contra; and Abrams’ fellow Iran-Contra convicts Caspar Weinberger and Robert McFarlane. Many of the same figures lobbying for Chechen separatism fronted for Bush’s invasion of Iraq. ... notorious neocon outfit, Freedom House Freedom House was linked to a string of pro-US "color revolutions" in eastern Europe and elsewhere —the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia, the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, the failed "Tulip Revolution" in Kyrgyzstan, and the failed 2002 coup in Venezuela to overthrow Hugo Chavez. Jamestown Foundation, a right-wing Cold War propaganda outfit founded by Reagan’s CIA director William Casey in the early 1980s. Russophobia; its politics are right-wing, pro-military, and pro-Big Oil.   Jamestown board members have included Dick Cheney, Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Woolsey, and another ex-CIA director, Michael Hayden. The president of the Jamestown Foundation, Glen Howard, served as the executive director of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya.  Before joining Jamestown, Howard had worked as an analyst at SAIC, one of the largest private contractors serving the CIA and Pentagon. Howard also bills himself as a consultant to oil majors operating in the Caspian Sea region. ... support for the Chechen separatist leaders was strong in both Saudi Arabia and the US and Britain. Al Qaeda links Empire and oil are the two constants in the "human rights" campaign for Chechnya. Big Oil is what made the neocons’ hearts bleed. money interests can turn Islamophobes into bleeding-heart apologists for Chechen terrorism breakup of the Soviet Union = excitement in the oil and gas industry over the vast unexploited oil and gas reserves in weak, newly-independent Muslim states, all bordering the Caspian Sea: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and to a lesser extent, Turkmenistan. Century prior = Royal Dutch Shell was one of the Caspian oil fields’ biggest profiteers Bolsheviks nationalized the oil fields after they took power in 1917, closing off the Caspian energy resources from Western control [FALL SOVIET UNION] Western oil reps were crawling around the ruins of Gorbachev’s empire, slavering over the Caspian region EXTRACTS ONLY - Full Article by Mark Ames:   https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/prisoners-of-the-caspian-part-one/ Really like this guy's article.  Heaps of interesting information. The above is only some of the information that caught my attention. Days later, I need to familiarise myself again, so I might have to go back and have another look.  Takes me ages to remember things. Article goes on to say that oil interests took precedence over US national security interests in the Caspian region, to the point of US protecting terrorists and that a CIA official (Robert Baer) resigned as a result. How bad must it be if even the CIA are disgusted? Baer's Time mag's intelligence columnist and has written for a bunch of other publications, including Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. The rest of the stuff on his Wikipedia page doesn't even register.  Sounds like a movie.  None of it feels real to me. The 'free press' is nonsense.  The press is corporate owned and it wouldn't surprise me if a good percentage of reporters were spies or ex-spies, while those that aren't are readily bribed (see CIA bribery revelation of Udo AlfKotte, German journalist >> German press is a PR appendage of NATO.). Ames' article points out that there's an OVERLAP between big oil, foreign policy and lobbyists (pro Chechnya lobbyists, in this case). Regional control boils down to control of resources and pipelines. Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline gets a mention.  Looked that up the other day, probably as a result of reading this. Bill Clinton was at the centre of this Caspian struggle. In 1999, while Russia was embroiled in a Chechnya war (a look-up job for me), Clinton made a surprise 'Ta-da, we're building a pipeline in Azerbaijan' announcement, which seemed to have seriously pissed off Yeltsin, who went as far as reminding the US that the Russians have nuclear weapons.  What?  Here's the cool bit:  this is where Vladimir Putin comes into the picture, as new Prime Minister (making it 15 years of leadership for Putin). Hey, this calls for Putin video insert (I actually like this and think it's cute.  Ummm, is that warped?): The writer's quite funny.  Said Yeltsin nearly launched the world's first and only nuclear suicide bombing over the US usurping the goodies in Azerbaijan. Article goes into Russia backing various parties in the region and causing destabilisation of newly independent states, but that's probably US propaganda.  Even if it's not, this is Russia's backyard and they have more right to seek influence in the region than the West. Another funny:  the West 'goes Alex Jones' on Russia, presumably over their earlier backing of players in the region.  That Jones guy sure is strange.  Wonder what his trip is?  As for the US, what hypocrites. And that's pretty much it in part one, as far as my interest are concerned.  Might have to follow up on the other parts somewhere down the track.  I'm having enough trouble absorbing what's going on so far. Below is info regarding the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline: Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline /crude oil Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan crude oil pipeline Operator BP Connects Baku (Caspian), #Azerbaijan to #Georgia & #Turkey Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline /crude oil Operator:  BP PARTNERS > BP > SOCAR > Chevron > Statoil TPAO > Eni Total SA > Itochu Inpex > ConocoPhillips > Hess Corporation 70% funding = 3rd party World Bnk (International Finance Corp) Euro Bank for Reconstr & Devel 7 nation export agencies 15 banks ----------------------------------- Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline / Crude oil  >> Azerbaijan (Caspian) to Georgia Turkey [INSERT PIE CHART] >> BP (#UK)   30.1% >> SOCAR (Azerbaijan) 25% ... largest stakes >Chevron (USA) 8.90% >ConocoPhillips (USA) 2.50% >Hess Corporation (USA) 2.36%      Total:  13.76% Statoil (Norway) 8.71%  TPAO (Turkey) 6.53% Eni (Italy) 5.00% Total (France) 5.0% >Itochu (Japan) 3.4% >Inpex (Japan)  2.50%    Total:  5.9% [Wikipedia] Don't know why they didn't just call it the Baku pipeline to make it easier to remember. The biggest stakeholder is British BP, followed by combined US interests (not counting Azerbaijan).  Then comes Norway, Turkey. Japan, and Italy and France at 5% each. That Norway is in there is interesting.  Being Statoil, it is probably a state government company.  Yeah, the Norwegian government owns 67%.   It's massive: "Statoil operates oil and gas fields in Australia, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, China, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, United States, and Venezuela." and it's looking for more business in Mexico, Qatar & UAE. It's probably also worthwhile noting it has: "processing plants in Belgium, Denmark, France, and Germany." Looking at information on some of these large companies is a dwarfing experience. The companies seem so huge and kind of intimidating when sizing them up, in contrast to government.  But government only seems 'small' in comparison to the large corporations because we're lulled into believing we're somehow stakeholders in government, and that it's a benign, appointed caretaker ticking along in the background doing all the right things on our behalves. So government's huge and corporations combined are probably even mightier than government. I'm finding it hard to get a feel for just how big the machinery of the state-corporate partnership is.  Compared to the tiny and disposable individual, it's colossal. If you look at the tussle over energy, profits, regional control, strategic advantage here in this article, it probably sums up 'the meaning of life' in politics.  This is it.  This is all there's ever been.  There's nothing more.  And people are killed and continue to lose their lives over these kinds of struggles.  Over and over again. P.S.  This gives the game away in the Middle East, then Human Rights = empire & oil (agenda) Certainty = backing dangerous terrorists to do one's regional bidding

RUSSIA - US & EU Sanctions - Foreign Oil Companies Affected

FACTBOX-EU, U.S. players in Russian energy sector MOSCOW, Sept 11 Thu Sep 11, 2014 3:54pm IST (Reuters) - The United States and European Union may stop billions of dollars in oil exploration in Russia by the world's largest energy companies in a new round of sanctions, U.S. government sources said. Following is a factbox on key projects in Russia in which energy firms from the European Union and the United States are involved or plan involvement: BP - BP obtained a 19.75 percent stake in state-controlled Rosneft as part of a deal that saw the British firm sell Rosneft its stake in the Anglo-Russian oil producer TNK-BP for $55 billion last year. - The companies agreed to explore Russia's hard-to-recover oil deposits. BP's head, Robert Dudley, a U.S. citizen, sits on Rosneft's board. EXXONMOBIL - Is involved in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project off the Russian Pacific island of Sakhalin, which produces more than 100,000 barrels of oil per day. ExxonMobil owns 30 percent in the project, while Rosneft has a 20 percent stake. Other stakeholders are Japan's Sodeco and India's ONGC. - Rosneft and Exxon agreed to develop West Siberia's hard-to-recover oil, where resources are estimated to be bigger than those in the Bakken formation in North America. ExxonMobil pledged to provide financing worth up to $300 million. - Rosneft and Exxon will tap the offshore reaches of the Russian Arctic. The acreage in the Chukchi Sea, Laptev Sea and Kara Sea spans approximately 600,000 square km (150 million acres). Exploration drilling in the Kara Sea began in August. - Both companies have agreed to tap Black Sea reserves. STATOIL - Rosneft and Norway's Statoil are due to develop the Domanik shale formation in the Volga region. - Rosneft and Statoil will jointly work on the Norwegian continental shelf in the Barents Sea, where Rosneft was awarded a 20 percent stake in the license PL713. - Both companies will also work in Russia's Perseevsky area in the Barents Sea and the Kashevarovsky, Lisyansky and Magadan 1 areas in the Sea of Okhotsk. - Statoil owns 30 percent stake in Kharyaga oil project in northern Russia. ENI, CONOCOPHILLIPS - Along with Rosneft, Italy's Eni will develop the Fedynsky, Central Barents blocks in the Barents Sea and the Western Chernomorsky block in the Black Sea. - Rosneft has the Polar Light project with ConocoPhillips in the Russian Arctic. ROYAL DUTCH SHELL - Royal Dutch Shell works with Gazprom Neft, the oil unit of state gas company Gazprom, via Salym Petroleum, which produces 140,000 barrels of oil per day. - Salym Petroleum is also exploring for unconventional oil at the Bazhenov formation in West Siberia. - Gazprom Neft and Shell created another joint venture last year to explore for shale oil at three deposits in West Siberia. - Shell owns 27.5 percent at the Sakhalin-2 project, which produces over 100,000 barrels of oil per day and around 10 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas. Gazprom has 50 percent stake, Japan's Mitsui - 12.5 percent, Mitsubishi - 10 percent. TOTAL - Total holds a 40 percent stake and leads Kharyaga oil project with production of around 30,000 barrels per day. - Total agreed with Lukoil to explore the Bazhenov formation. Seismic acquisition should start this year and exploration drilling is due to follow in 2015. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Katya Golubkova, editing by Elizabeth Piper/Jeremy Gaunt) http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/09/11/ukraine-crisis-russia-energy-idINL5N0RC1B320140911

Nice list of foreign interests in oil exploration in Russia.

Thought I'd set it aside here for an easy find when wanted.

check it out.

LITHUANIA - LNG supply deal with Norway inked

Lithuania, Statoil sign LNG deal to end Gazprom monopoly MENAFN - AFP - 21/08/2014 (MENAFN - AFP) Lithuania signed a deal with Norway's Statoil on Thursday to supply natural gas to the country's new terminal starting 2015, as the Baltic state strives to cut its dependence on Russian energy. Under the five-year deal, Statoil will supply an annual 540 million cubic meters to the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on Lithuania's Baltic Sea coast which is due to be completed by the end of the year. The value of the deal is estimated at 2.5 to three billion litas (700-900 million euros, 1.0-1.1 billion) according to Litgas, the state-owned company in charge of LNG imports. "It is a big and important step in strengthening Lithuanian energy security," Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius told reporters. "For the first time in Lithuanian history, we will have a permanent alternative natural gas import source." Russia's state-owned Gazprom is Lithuania's only natural gas supplier under a deal arranged in Soviet times, when Lithuania was part of the USSR. But Vilnius has been working to diversify its gas suppliers since breaking free from Moscow in 1990 and joining the European Union and NATO in 2004. In May, Gazprom agreed to a price cut of about 20 percent, after Lithuania filed an international lawsuit. The first LNG cargo delivery is expected in December, so that the terminal at the port of Klaipeda can start commercial operations in January 2015, Litgas said. http://www.menafn.com/1093921279/Lithuania-Statoil-sign-LNG-deal-to-end-Gazprom-monopoly

Surprised it's a Norwegian company.  Thought it would be the US doing the supply.