TRAFFIC throught the Bosporus & Dardanelles.
No score for this post February 27 2004, 12:49 PM
Friday, Feb. 27, 2004. Page 5
Russia Warns Turkey Over Bosporus.
Bloomberg
By Yalman Onaran
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Turkish authorities are restricting traffic through the Bosporus and delaying Russian oil exports to promote their plans to build pipelines across the country, acting Deputy Foreign Minister Viktor Kalyuzhny said Thursday.
"A special alarm is being sounded consistently for political reasons to promote multiple oil pipelines," Kalyuzhny said at an oil and gas conference in Istanbul. "The straits are only at half their transit capacity. Inadequate traffic control is the only problem."
The Bosporus and Dardanelles straits are among the world's busiest waterways and the main route through which Russia and other former Soviet states send exports, including crude oil, to world markets. Turkey since 1998 has implemented new rules, such as banning tanker traffic at night, to increase safety.
Turkey is pushing for pipelines to connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean as a way to reduce tanker traffic in the straits.
Turkey is also planning to pump Iraqi natural gas through a new pipeline that will be built to connect the Turkish network to Greece's pipes and on to Western Europe, possibly bringing the country into conflict with Russia, Europe's largest gas supplier.
"Russia may be harsh regarding our plans to sell gas to third parties because it wants to remain a monopoly," said Nadir Buyukoglu, deputy chief executive of BOTAS, Turkey's state-run pipeline company. Turkey, which has negligible oil or gas reserves, is seeking to become a transit route for energy resources that could be shipped from its eastern neighbors to Western Europe. Those plans may create conflicts with Russia, which is seeking to boost its oil and gas exports and Thursday criticized Turkey's plans to ship gas to Europe via Greece.
"But times are changing, and keeping commercial considerations in mind, I believe they will also turn around and let us sell their gas to Europe," Buyukoglu said.
Turkey and the United States successfully lobbied international oil companies to build a $3.6 billion pipeline from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean, despite concerns the route was not economically viable. A BP-led group started work on the project in 2002.
"We have to stop seeing the straits as a natural oil pipeline," Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said at the conference, prior to Kalyuzhny's comments.
Russia's oil output has increased about 40 percent to 8.4 million barrels per day since 1998 as the country's oil producers try to take market share from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Russia is the world's second-biggest oil producer behind Saudi Arabia.
Delays at the Bosporus and Dardanelles increased freight costs for shipping 1 million-barrel crude cargoes through the Mediterranean by more than 90 percent in December, data show.
Turkish authorities blame increased traffic for the delays. Tanker traffic through the straits has risen 30 percent in two years, reaching 134.6 million tons last year, according to Turkish maritime officials.
"If oil traffic through the straits is to rise by 50 percent, keeping pace with the world's energy needs rising that much by 2020, we'll have to forget about the straits all together," Guler said in an interview after Kalyuzhny spoke.
Turkey has rejected a Russian proposal to establish a joint commission to study ways to improve traffic control in the straits, Kalyuzhny said. Guler did not confirm or deny the offer, saying only that Turkey is always open to discussions on how to improve traffic conditions.
Updating navigational systems would end the traffic delays in the straits, Kalyuzhny said.
On Dec. 30, Turkey started using a new traffic control and monitoring system that cost the country $45 million. The system uses radar, cameras and other equipment to monitor ships and guide them through the straits.
The new system "mysteriously has made things worse," Kalyuzhny said. "The straits are not safer now, and the delays have gotten worse."
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