Leaders of the six states are going to discuss in Baku the project of the European-Asian corridor for oil transportation.

On 14 November the 4th summit on energetic safety was opened in Baku. This forum is among the largest international events held this year in Azerbaijan.

Presidents of Turkey - Abdullah Gul, Georgia - Mikheil Saakashvili, the Ukraine - Viktor Yushchenko, Lithuania - Valdas Adamkus, and Poland - Lech Kaczynski, arrived in Baku for the participation in the activities of this event. The Romanian delegation was represented at the summit by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lazar Comanescu, the Kazakhstan delegation – by the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Sauat Mynbayev, the Latvian delegation – by the Deputy Minister of the Economy, Arturs Bergholcs, and the delegation of the USA – by the Minister of Energy, Samuel Bodman. Apart from the above participants, representatives of the EU and diplomats from various countries accredited in Azerbaijan were present at the forum.

As noted in the official documents of the summit, forum was held aiming at “working out conceptual approaches, principles and mechanisms for increasing the level of transparency, reliability and security of the transit of energy transfer on the area of Caspian-Black-Baltic Sea region in general, on the basis of systematic integration of intellectual, technical, financial and other resources of the states of the region, and in accordance with the requirements of the Energy Charter and other international instruments”. To put it otherwise the discussion is related to the establishment of the Southern energetic corridor for the delivery of energetic resources of the Caspian Sea to the global markets. The main role in this concept is given to the project of the oil pipeline Odessa-Brody, which should transport the Caspian oil via Ukraine to the Polish cities of Plock and Gdansk.

A joint international pipeline network association “Sarmatija”, uniting the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, the Oil-Gas Corporation of Georgia, the “Ukrtransnafta”, the Polish PERN, and the Lithuanian state company Klaipedos Nafta, was established last year. Political decision on establishing such company, which would be involved in drafting the feasibility study on the oil route Baku-Tbilisi-Odessa-Brody-Plock-Gdansk, was taken in October last year at Vilnius Energy summit by the leaders of Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania.

According to the opinion of local analysts, the USA is very much interested in the implementation of this project, aimed at the increased energetic security of the European countries leading to the reduced dependence on Russian energy resources. In the nearest future countries of Central Asia are planning to join this project, namely, Kazakhstan, having huge resources of hydrocarbon and increasing the production of it annually.

Material has been prepared by the Centre for Geopolitical Studies with reference to the article from “Nezavisimaja Gazeta“ of 14 November 2008.

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