Energie : Ankara, un partenaire clé dans la stratégie russe

Dans sa stratégie de contrôle des routes du gaz, la Russie a pour objectif prioritaire de gagner un maximum de soutiens régionaux à ses deux projets phares : le gazoduc russo-allemand de la Baltique, au nord, supervisé par Gehrard Schröder, dont elle espère qu’il prendra progressivement le relais du gazoduc ukrainien, fragilisé par les tensions entre Moscou et Kiev. Et le gazoduc Bluestream, sous la Mer noire, qui doit permettre de transporter le gaz russe, via la Turquie, vers l’Italie, l’Autriche et, maintenant, la Hongrie. Soucieux de contrer le projet de gazoduc Nabucco - un projet très soutenu par les Européens car il acheminerait le gaz de la Caspienne vers l’Europe et permettrait donc d’alléger la dépendance vis-à-vis de Moscou -, Gazprom semble même prêt à construire un deuxième gazoduc jumeau de Bluestream. Dans cette perspective, la Turquie apparaît de plus en plus comme un partenaire clé dans la stratégie russe. Depuis la visite de Vladimir Poutine à Ankara en novembre, les visites de responsables se multiplient entre les deux pays. La Russie souhaiterait faire de ce pays un « carrefour » des routes gazières, susceptible de redistribuer vers l’Europe du Sud et Israël. Gazprom propose aussi d’investir dans le réseau national de distribution turc et de développer des capacités de stockage en Anatolie.

© Le Figaro, le 06/02/2006

la Turquie au cœur de la recomposition des réseaux énergétiques

Lloyd’s List - le 22/02/2006
in Insight & Opinion

Pipeline pedigree helps Turkey find a place in the sun : Turkey’s traditional role at the crossroads of Europe makes it a natural partner for countries keen to diversify their energy supply sources. By Patrick Byrne

TURKEY is surrounded by 75% of the world’s known reserves of oil and gas. Long-term strategies plus recent developments are turning the country into an energy hub for the region. Strategically, many governments are seeking to reduce their energy dependence on
any single supplier.

For the US, this has meant a desire to diversify from
Middle Eastern sources, for the European Union less dependence on Russian supplies.

In this context, Turkey is seen as a stable partner which intersects the energy fields of the Middle East, Russia and the newer discoveries around the Caspian Sea.
Turkey is eager to match these expectations and for the last 10 years has pushed ahead with a 1,768 km pipeline project to bring crude oil from Azerbaijan’s Shah-Deniz oilfields in the Caspian to the giant Turkish purpose-built
Mediterranean oil terminal port of Ceyhan.

Against many obstacles, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) project is finally nearing completion with tankering planned to begin this spring.

An anatolian network of pipelines

Turkey’s boldness appears to be paying off, especially with the recent rise in petrol prices and the increased yield expectation from the Caspian area now estimated at 15% of the world’s total oil reserves.

Resembling a railway map, Turkey is creating a network of pipelines to bring oil and gas more swiftly and safely to Europe and the world.

Pipelines are not entirely new to Turkey. Since 1977 there has been one in
operation from the Kirkuk oilfields of northern Iraq to Ceyhan. Disrupted by decades of war, sanctions and now insurgent attacks, the country is hopeful that Iraq’s military and political situation will stabilise enough for
full operation.

The Caspian-to-Med BTC pipeline has an initial capacity of 1 million barrels of oil a day, which is projected to rise to 5m barrels a day within a decade.

Togrul Bagirov of the Moscow International Petroleum club, an umbrella group for Russia’s leading oil companies, predicts that in 10 years’ time the pipeline could serve a larger spot market than Rotterdam, making it one of the biggest loading terminals in the world.

Turkey is also pushing for Ceyhan to become the outlet for a significant percentage of Russia’s oil exports via a pipeline from the Black Sea.

At present, much of the petrol from Russia is shipped across the Black Sea, down Istanbul’s narrow Bosporus and then through Turkey’s heavily congested Dardanellea straits before reaching the Mediterranean.
As a spate of groundings and closures has shown, this slow and dangerous route cannot keep up with the world’s insatiable demand for energy.
Traffic has risen 300% in the last decade with 2.9m barrels now carried daily in 150 vessels. And this is forecast to double over the next decade with Kazakstan’s huge oilfields coming onstream.

To prevent a further rise in traffic and reduce it from current levels, a number
of pipeline projects have been suggested which could bypass the Bosporus and Sea of Marmara bottlenecks.
The reaction of Top Tankers general manager Stavros Emmanuel is typical.

"We would welcome this very, very much. Queues during strong market periods and in bad weather create delays of 20 days for four or five months of the year.
This costs a lot of money to everybody. In the high season, it can add as much
as $1.5m for tankers of 130 tonnes-140,000 tonnes."

Traditionally, Russia has favoured bypass pipeline routes running through historically-friendly Balkan states like Romania, Bulgaria and Greece.
The first and most favoured route is the short 285 km link from Bulgaria’s Eastern Black Sea port of Bourgas to Alexandroupolis on Greece’s Aegean coast.

The proposed pipeline is planned to have an initial annual capacity of 15m tonnes rising to a potential of 50m tonnes dependent on demand.
It was finally announced last April that work on the $677m pipeline could begin in 2006. However, there remain a number of complex negotiations to complete before the project can proceed.

Other pipeline projects have been proposed, running from the Black Sea to Albania’s deepwater port at Vlore opposite the heel of Italy, as well as one to run to Italy’s Trieste. But these other plans are less advanced.

Blue Stream

Turkey has its own bypass oil pipeline in mind which it wants to run in parallel with its newly inaugurated BlueStream natural gas pipeline.
This 1,200 km pipeline runs 376 km underwater from Russia’s north-east Black Sea coast surfacing at Turkey’s northern port of Samsun. From there it runs another
501 km to the capital, Ankara, where it links up with Turkey’s national gas grid.

In recent weeks, Russia’s national gas producer, Gazprom has announced joint plans with Turkey to extend this gas pipeline down to Ceyhan so that gas can be
supplied to Israel and Lebanon.
Turkey estimates that a Black Sea-Ceyhan oil pipeline would reduce tanker traffic through the Bosporus and Marmara straits by as much as 50%. Russia has traditionally been sceptical towards Turkey’s route for economic reasons, citing the high costs of piping oil compared to tanker shipments.

There may also have been political objections. However, recent bitter disputes with Ukraine and Georgia over gas supply are leading to a more open-minded approach.

As Katherine Kravchenko, Senior Oil & Gas Analyst from Moscow-based BCS Financial Services explains : "The environment has changed dramatically recently. Having got the problems with Ukraine and Georgia, Russia has pushed
its drive in lining up new export routes.
"Every opportunity will be investigated in-depth. Turkey could become an energy hub for Europe. This is more likely if Turkey is able to build a bypass oil pipeline that will carry both Russian and Kazakh oil to the Mediterranean by
2010."

From Russia’s perspective, the various alternatives pipeline projects and the Turkish route are not necessarily contradictory.
For one thing, it wants its own level of flexibility. Moreover, Turkey’s plan is the only one to eliminate the need for loading tankers in the Black Sea, Aegean or Adriatic.

Last November, Russia agreed with Turkey to carry out separate feasibility studies on the Black Sea-Ceyhan option.
One of the joint partners on the Turkish side is Italian oil major ENI, which owns large oilfields in Kazakhstan. The Turkish study is reportedly now firming up into a definite plan to build the pipeline.

The rising price of oil is making natural gas a much more attractive proposition
to many countries seeking to reduce their dependence on oil. Italy for one wants to solve its own energy crises by converting from oil-fired power stations to gas.
While some of this demand in Europe can be met by liquefied natural gas shipping, pipeline supply is seen as a more suitable solution.

Just as with crude oil, Turkey has been building an infrastructure to supply natural gas to Europe.
In addition to the Blue Stream pipeline, Gazprom has also indicated a desire to
build a second Russian-Turkish pipeline to supply gas to Greece and Italy. This
would tie in with natural gas from Azerbaijan, which is expected to reach Turkey’s national grid in the last quarter of this year.
At the other end, the Turkey-Greece Natural Gas pipeline project is nearing completion.
The line will be some 300 km long and first deliveries are expected in the fourth quarter of 2006. In preparation for this, Greece is starting to build a 600 km pipeline across its territory towards Italy.
Italy and Greece recently signed an agreement to extend the planned pipeline to carry gas to Southern Italy by 2010.

There is also an Iran-Turkey gas link with plans to upgrade it under the Nabucco
Project to supply gas to Eastern Europe by 2011 ndash ; though this could be jeopardised by the threat of UN sanctions against Iran.
In the meantime, there are plans to transport crude oil from Ceyhan to Ashkelon on the north-western coast of Israel. From there it could run by pipeline south
to Eilat, Israel’s port on the Red Sea for tankering to all points East.

Already, the Ashkelon-Eilat pipeline has been adjusted to run both ways and sources indicate that at least two dry runs between Ceyhan and Israel have been undertaken.
Meanwhile, Turkish-Israeli intergovernmental working groups are meeting regularly to discuss this and longer-term plans to construct a series of undersea pipelines carrying not only oil, but gas, water and electricity from
Turkey to Israel, removing at least some tanker tonne-mile demand in the process.

With all these energy projects in progress, many assume that Turkey’s aim is to increase its clout in the region. Of course, Turkey’s new-found role as a central European energy hub can’t harm its chances of eventually acceding to membership of the European Union.
But Turkish officials stress the advantages to them for cheaper and more secure energy supplies, and welcome the pipelines as an opportunity to strengthen relationships with previously difficult neighbours.