Washington backs Southern Corridor, urges for regional cooperation

Top U.S. official and former diplomats on energy policy on Tuesday expressed their sympathy to the Southern Energy Corridor, a project of a series of operating, planned, and prospective pipelines stretching from the natural gas and oil-rich Caspian Sea to European and global markets.

“Europe’s energy security is absolutely key to the U.S.’ national security,” explainedRobin Dunnigan, State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for energy diplomacy, TURAN’s U.S. correspondent reports.

For Washington, she said, Southern Corridor remains “the most important project” among all other existing ideas to address Europe’s energy security challenges, given the need for diversification of energy supply sources and transportation routes.

“Russian-Ukraine crisis underscores that one country’s energy leverage and another country’s energy vulnerability can create national security issues,” she said.

Amb.Morningstar at the SOCAR-sponsored event

Dunnigan spoke at a Wilson Center event sponsored by the Azerbaijani state oil company -- SOCAR.

It also marked the first public event of Ambassador Richard Morningstar in Washington, D.C. after his return from Baku later last summer. Among the speakers was also Amb. Richard Kauzlarich, another former U.S. envoy to Azerbaijan.

Amb. Kauzlarichcurrently is with George Mason University’s School of Public Policy. He is known as an outspoken critic of Azerbaijani government amid its poor human rights records.

Amb. Morningstaris a founding director of Global Energy Center at the Atlantic Council, a think-tank thatallegedly participates in lobbyingefforts in favor of Azerbaijani government.

Speaking to TURAN’s correspondent, Morningstar said, he “definitely [is] not relatedtoany energy or state companies linked to the Azerbaijani government.”

Policy is “not an anti-Russian, buta pro-European approach”

Speaking at the event, both Morningstar and Dunniganmade it clear that Washington’s energy policy towards Europe was“not an anti-Russian approach;it’s really a pro-European approach.”

“Russia will and should continue to be the major energy supplier to Europe and that makes lots of sense… But no country should be depended on one supplier for key energy resource,” Dunniganexplained.

U.S. and European Union have long been discussing the implementation of the 3^rd energy package along with dozens of priority infrastructure projects. For Washington, Southern Corridor remains “the most important” to address the diversity challenges -- both diversity of supply, supplier, route, etc.

Speaking about the “distractions”,the speakers underscored that any new ideas that don’t meet the goals of diversifying of the energy resources, are “hard to see.”

South Stream and the Turkish Stream are in this category, as they meant to bring “same gas to same customers from different routes,”Dunnigan added.

Morningstar said, there is one single most important thing that the EU could do to address its energy security right now: to follow its own laws...

“People don’t talk enough about one of the major reasons why South Stream failed. There was absolutely no way that South Stream could ever get approved in Europe.  Because there was clear violation of the third energy package from the standpoint of the need for third party access, differentiation between production and transit, etc.”

As for Turkish stream, the first pipeline to be built will only replace existing gas that Russia send to Turkey. So in a practical reality, the second pipeline before gas could potentially go on to Europe.

Speaking about Russia’s role in European energy security he said that in spite of all the difficulties there is still an energy relationship between Russia and Ukraine.

For whatever the reason, Russia is going to have to rely on Ukraine for at least a significant portion of transit for a long time to come. There is no way around it.

Kauzlarich on energy efficiency and challenges

Amb. Kauzlarichreferred his speech to the recent International Energy Agencystudy on South Caucasus, Central Asia and Eastern Europe focusing on the energy issues.

These countries,he said,are now at a stage of development of their resources that they need to look at regionally and not just as a single country producer or transporter.

For Kauzlarich, the potential of Caucasus and Central Asia gas resources isbecoming very significant.

One real barrier to that is demarcation of the Caspian Sea. “It’s very unlikely that with an absent of Russian and Iranian agreement any Trans-Caspian pipeline will be built.”

There are also some issues that all the attention on production transportation tendto overshadow that really has to be addressed in countries like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, he said, adding that the one is investment climate.“The major energy companies have done fantastically well in Azerbaijan PSAs. But the second area industries have not done that well.”

Second thing is domestic energy demand in all these countries. Energy efficiency is key to that.“The more efficient you are at consuming domestically freezing up resources for export. Saudis have realized that in particular,” he said.

Another point, he highlighted, is that all these countries need to invest more in technical education, development of technology to improve the efficiency of both production and alternative energy sources.

Kauzlarich also listed potential regional conflicts among major negative factors adding that they could increase the potential for instability in the region and affect the pipeline plans.

A.Raufoglu

Washington, D.C.