Trans-Caspian hostages of Iran and Russia

The reaction of Moscow and Tehran was prompt and proactive when it was voiced even before negotiations between the representatives of the Turkmen leader and the European-Chinese consortium, offering Turkmenistan direct access to the Southern Gas Corridor. According to the Turkmen resource orient.tm consortium of companies - European Edison Technologies GmbH, MMEC Mannesmann GmbH, Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions together with Chinese SINOPEC Engineering Group - expressed readiness to implement the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline project. This was announced at a meeting of representatives of the consortium with Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan M. Meredov and Advisor to the President of Turkmenistan on oil and gas issues Yagshigeldy Kakaev.

At the meeting "Energy potential of the Caspian Sea", the consortium is ready to lay a 300 km pipeline along the bottom of the Caspian Sea, drill the required number of turnkey gas wells, design and build gas treatment plants and compression stations that will provide the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline with purified gas, and all the necessary infrastructure.

"Each company in our consortium owns a unique technology, ability, you can say," said Edison Technologies CEO Casapoglu Edison. "By joining a consortium, we can now implement such a bold project as a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan along the bottom of the Caspian Sea. The European market is interested in it, and we consider it a great step to return to the promising Caspian region. " In fact, Brussels has intensified its trans-Caspian negotiations with Ashgabat since 2018.

Iran opposed to the construction of a gas pipeline in the Caspian Sea, as it could cause serious damage to the ecology of the region, said Behruz Namdari, representative of the National Gas Company (Iran), speaking at the forum. He said that "building a gas pipeline from east to west of the Caspian Sea could seriously damage the region"s ecology. Iran is opposed to its construction." Namdari recalled that Iran offers neighbors to use its infrastructure - gas pipelines and terminals - to supply gas to world markets. This statement by Namdari can be called politically motivated, as Iran is currently considering the construction of a pipeline along the bottom of the Persian Gulf in Oman, which has the infrastructure for gas supplies to Europe.

As for the existing infrastructural capabilities of Iran in the western direction, they are weak and do not meet the needs of both Turkmenistan and potential European buyers. The fact is that Turkmenistan has recently supplied to Azerbaijan approximately 1.5 billion cubic meters a year 1.5 billion cubic meters a year through the Iran"s onshore gas pipeline.

It should also be noted that Tehran sees Turkmenistan as a competitor. Iran owns the world's largest gas reserves and plans to supply up to 30 billion cubic meters of blue fuel annually to Europe in the long term.

Almost the same motivation among Russians. Before the forum, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Government of the Russian Federation Sergey Prikhodko said, "The interests of preserving the unique ecosystem of the Caspian have an absolute priority over any hypothetical economic projects." According to him, the possible competition between Russian and Turkmen projects for the supply of gas to Europe should be determined solely by economic factors and based on market mechanisms.

Moscow"s position is also politically motivated, since Russia, after the adoption of the European Energy Charter of the EU in 2004, began the active construction of submarine gas pipelines in the Black and North Seas, some of which transport Russian gas to Europe.

The Kremlin is also trying to prevent Turkmen gas from entering the European market directly, bypassing Russia, which it sees as competitive. Turkmenistan today imports gas mainly to China. In 2018, Turkmenistan delivered about 34 billion cubic meters to China.

Until 2016, Russia exported Turkmen gas to Europe within 10 billion cubic meters, but limited it to 4 billion. This caused a protest from the Turkmen side, which by this time began to increase gas exports to China. In early July of this year, Gazprom signed a five-year contract for the import of natural gas from Turkmenistan in the volume of deliveries of 5.5 billion cubic meters per year.

In this case, in fact, the talk is about barter. In exchange, the Turkmen side will increase imports of products from Russia; in particular, it will buy representative cars of the Arus line, which were presented by Prime Minister Medvedev to President Berdimuhamedov, for the Turkmen elite.

Moscow and Tehran have an important tool to block the trans-Caspian - the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. Despite the fact that it was signed on August 12, 2018 and allowed the implementation of various projects, it did not enter into force, as it was not ratified by Russia and Iran and was left to the discretion of the parliamentarians of both countries. However, even the adoption of the convention does not mean that the path for trans-Caspian will be open. The Russian Foreign Ministry believes that the laying of the gas pipeline requires coordination with all the Caspian countries: Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in accordance with protocol of the 2003 Tehran Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context.

Under the current state of affairs and the balance of power in the Caspian region, Berdimuhamedov takes a cautious position and invites the countries of the region to focus on solving urgent practical tasks of common Caspian development, taking into account the experience of "amorphous" regional international associations, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation, Shanghai Organization cooperation, CIS.

The cautious consolidated position in the person of the USA and the European Union shows that the West is not ready to force the trans-Caspian issue, the construction topic of which has been hanging in the air for more than 20 years, despite the memorandums signed with Turkmenistan. Recently, both poles of the Western world have not made any clear statements on this subject, resigned to the position of Russia and Iran in the current geopolitical conditions. In this case, the implementation of the Caspian pipeline will become possible only because of changing the vectors of development of authoritarian regimes in the Caspian region.