CASPIAN SEA STATUS TODAY OR `QUESTION OF NON-EXISTING PROBLEM`

 

Being a sensitive issue and almost as old as the Sea itself, the Caspian Sea status is emerging on the daily agenda along with the intersection of geopolitical interests of various countries and reinforcement of littoral states' economies in the sea.

The main difficulty in ‘the status problem' of the Caspian Sea is that de-facto it does not exist as the oil&gas exploration and production is performed in all five sectors and offshore oil and gas pipelines have been installed back in the time of the first oil production in 1949 in current Azeri sector. It is quite different matter now since starting 1994, when the first international contract on Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Guneshli fields was setup, the issue of the Caspian Sea status, more or less, is initiated, mulled and prevented to get resolved by only one littoral country, Russia.

The more critical the issue is raised ex parte, the more successful are the projects the pressure is exerted against. The only exception is Kapaz-Serdar (Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan) project launched by Russian consortium LUKOIL-Rosneft and SOCAR in 1997, but later frozen for clearly political reasons. The same fate awaited the second major project in Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea: promising fields Araz-Alov-Sharg were suddenly claimed by Iran a year later. The two largest gas powers showed quite clearly they want to see neither Azerbaijan nor Turkmenistan among their competitors in the global market. Naturally, neither Iran nor Russia gain fame or any economic scores in the international arena as, despairing of effortlessly hitting the monopoly wall, consumers bring more and more investments not to new fields abroad but in their own nuclear energy, as well as high-tech energy-saving production, renewable energy sources, organic bio-fuel and this process cannot be reversed. 

Today, on the threshold of the European Union-initiated new Caspian project, Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline, ‘the Caspian Sea status' returned to the daily agenda again. It is noteworthy that the RF today does not have any disputable structures in its sector, all three: Khavalinskoye, Kurmangazy, Tsentralnoye and Yalama-Samur area have already been agreed upon with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, respectively, in accordance with sectoral division principle and the provisional operations are underway.

The issues concerning the use of the Caspian Sea resources shall not be approached with some common measures, they call for ‘special regulation', said Alexander Golovin, the Ambassador for Special Assignments, the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the RF, at parliamentary hearings on issues of energy and environmental security regulation of the Caspian region in March 2007.

According to ITAR-TASS, he said that there is a need for a new document to thoroughly settle the Caspian Sea legal status. "Littoral countries agreed to establish a negotiation mechanism to work out a new convention of the legal status of the Caspian Sea, but it is such a complicated task", he admitted. Alongside, Mr. Golovin stressed, one cannot get by ‘in the long-term outlook' without a new concept.

He suggested namely the unsolved legal issues resulting in the ‘inability to commence operations at oil&gas fields' located on the borders of subsoil zones claimed by several states at once. Furthermore, Mr. Golovin said it was not necessary to wait for convention on the Caspian Sea legal status to setup the agreement on seabed delimitation with the purpose of subsoil use. "The seabed delimitation is an issue that does not call for five-sided decisions", he explained.

In general, he said, ‘Russia's principal approach to the settlement of the Caspian Sea status is based upon the statement: the greater part of the sea remains in common disposal of littoral states, the better.'

The representative of the Foreign Affairs Ministry also paid attention to environmental risks arising from development of the offshore resources. "Even today mineral resources of the Caspian Sea are less than 3% of world's resources, so preserving environmental balance will become the priority task in order to prevent the Aral Sea disaster in the Caspian Sea", said Mr. Golovin.

Until the convention is approved, the participants of the hearings dwell on the preposition that the Caspian sea status is governed by the legal regime established by the Soviet-Persian Agreement dated  February 26, 1921 and the Agreement about Trade and Navigation between the USSR and Iran dated March 25, 1940, which set out the freedom of navigation for vessels flying under littoral countries' flags, freedom of fishing, except for the ten-mile coastal zone, as well as prohibition of navigation  of vessels flying under non-littoral countries' flags and inadmissibility of ex parte revision and amendment of this regime.

The participants of the hearing offered the government to arrange consultations with the concerned ministries and institutions, as well as the Russian Academy of Sciences in respect to drawing the RF's proposals on establishment of special agency /conference/ on protection of marine environment and bio-resources of the Caspian Sea.

The participants of the parliamentary hearings consider it necessary to lead the next economic forum in St. Petersburg, dedicated to the  problems of the Caspian Sea, and perform the analysis of littoral countries cooperation on production and transportation of hydrocarbons from the Caspian Sea shelf; and according to the results of the forum draw parity proposals on development of the transportation routes in the Caspian Sea shelf's fields.

It was also proposed to prepare additional proposals on development of shipbuilding due to growing requirements for oil products transportation and environmental safety of the Caspian region as well as take additional set of measures to place orders for oil&gas producing platforms to supply the demand of the CIS littoral countries.

The growth of oil&gas production in the Caspian Sea is just bound to cause trouble, it is a very sensitive zone and there shall be a correct approach to environment preservation. Undoubtedly, all littoral countries shall demand their operators and contractors perform safely their oil&gas operations in the Caspian Sea, guided by the worldwide accepted practice.

So, there is an exclusive group of offshore areas identified as Special Areas (SA) due to their high water and coast vulnerability by the Committee for Marine Environment Protection (CMEP), a supervisory agency with the International Maritime Organization (IMO). They include SAs in the Mediterranean Sea, Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Aden, Sea of Oman, seas of Antarctica and North-Western Europe, and from March 2006 South Africa coasts. The organization brings together more than 25 countries of North America, Africa, South America, Europe, Southeast Asia and Caribbean region.

The Special Area status means that acute or chronic pollution with oil due to oil&gas exploration and production, as well as oil products, ballast water from passing vessels shall be reduced as the companies and people are prohibited to discharge wastes to the sea, or such discharges shall be limited. Due to identification of protected status of this area on international navigation charts, vessels will be warned not to discharge fuel in the area.

 According to IMO procedures, the Special Area status comes in effect gradually; during the provisional period, prior to the status coming into effect, the CMEP is publishing and universally distributes the directive encouraging the voluntary commitment to restrictions and limitations imposed by the Special Area status.

The similar decision shall be made on limitation of illegal fishing for preservation of the sea flora and fauna.

In these conditions, when littoral countries feel necessary to develop Caspian resources, such international approach is perceived as a most constructive and safe one for the Caspian Sea, because it has already been divided de-facto and one may disagree with that, but the situation will not change; the strategic projects aimed at supplying the demand of enormous European market for energy resources cannot be stopped either. However, coordination of approaches and principles of preservation of Caspian Sea resources is just one of a few tasks that brings together interests and decisions of all five littoral countries. And it is not an overstatement that the future of the entire Caspian region depends on its resolution in accordance with worldwide practice and identified and approved international standards.