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1) West To Bring Kazakh Oil, Through Possible Undersea Pipeline, To Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Line Into Europe 2) US State Department Special Adviser: Azeri And Kazakh Energy Reserves Larger Than Forecast 3) Georgia Allows US Warplanes To Use Its Airspace http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/cj/Qazerbaijan-kazakhstan.Rv-q_DMB.html Construction of Caspian-Mediterranean oil pipeline set to begin in April -Townsend was speaking to reporters after meeting officials from Kazakhstan's state oil company, which hopes that by linking the Caspian with Turkey's Mediterranean coast the pipeline will reduce Kazakh dependence on Russia as an export route. -Initially oil will be transported across the Caspian by ship from Western Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan's capital Baku, but some have suggested a pipeline could also be built between the two countries under the landlocked Caspian. ALMATY, March 11 (AFP) - Construction of a pipeline which will bring oil from the Caspian Sea region to Western markets will begin in April despite Russian objections, the pipeline's owners said on Tuesday. "The construction of this will go ahead. The principal markets will be Europe and America," said Michael Townsend, director general of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline consortium. Townsend was speaking to reporters after meeting officials from Kazakhstan's state oil company, which hopes that by linking the Caspian with Turkey's Mediterranean coast the pipeline will reduce Kazakh dependence on Russia as an export route. Russia has expressed bitter opposition to the BTC pipeline because it would break Moscow's monopoly on oil exports from the Caspian. The row is the latest development in a struggle between Russia and Western governments over control of the Caspian Sea's massive oil and gas reserves, believed by some experts to rival those of the Gulf. As Townsend held talks in the Kazakh city of Almaty, US interest was voiced by Steven Mann, advisor on Caspian Sea energy issues to President George W. Bush, after he met Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in the capital Astana. "We reviewed the discussions that are taking place ... on creating an export route to bring Kazakih oil into the Baku-Ceyhan system," Mann told journalists. "Those discussions are going extremely well as we have the participation of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan and of those companies that are engaged." Initially oil will be transported across the Caspian by ship from Western Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan's capital Baku, but some have suggested a pipeline could also be built between the two countries under the landlocked Caspian. Georgia initially opposed construction of the BTC pipeline across its territory on environmental grounds but has now given its consent. BTC pipeline is owned by private and state investors including the Azeri state and a number of companies involved in oil extraction in Kazakhstan. Of the anticipated 2.95-billion-dollar (2.66-billion-euro) construction cost 70 percent will be paid in the form of loans by the International Monetary Fund, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development and other banks. ------------------------------------------------------- http://www.interfax.com/com?item=Azer&pg=0&id=5624046&req= Interfax March 11, 2003 Azerbaijani and Kazakh Caspian reserves larger than forecast Astana. (Interfax) - There is more oil in the Azerbaijani and Kazakh sectors of the Caspian Sea than forecast, the U.S. State Secretary's special advisor on Caspian energy issues Steven Mann announced on Tuesday in Astana. Mann said in particular that reserves were higher than forecast in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian. For example, one well at the Azeri-Chirag-Gyunashli group of fields is producing 20,000 barrels of oil per day, which is extremely high figure. Mann said that with time figures forecast for the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea would be also higher. As for the Northern Caspian, every month and every year there are more and more new discoveries enabling us to suppose that oil reserves in Kazakh structures will increase during the course of the exploration, he said. ------------------------------------------------------- http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=3089308&startrow=31&date=2003-03-11&do_alert=0 Russian Information Agency (Novosti) March 11, 2003 GEORGIA ALLOWS US WARPLANES TO USE ITS AIRSPACE TBILISI, March 11, 2003. /From RIA Novosti corr./ - Zurab Chankotadze, head of Georgia's civil aviation administration, confirmed on Tuesday that a US military plane flew over Georgia on March 7, as some of the Russian media reported the day before. In an interview with RIA Novosti, Chankotadze noted that "there is nothing surprising" about the use of Georgia's airspace by US warplanes. According to him, "US military planes have been flying regularly over Georgian territory since an anti-terrorist operation was launched in Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001." Americans in particular "use certified air corridors for flights to Afghanistan and Cyprus, with some of them passing through Georgia," he explained. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bdn7KI.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. 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