It's not all about Afghan energy

A letter of mine in the April 21st Hill Times (a weekly inside the Queensway paper for politicos, journalists, lobbyists and bureaucrats):

Dewar makes a great to-do about Afghanistan and energy, no?

Re: "Parliament is ignoring 'New Great Energy Game' in Afghanistan, says MP," (The Hill Times, April 14, p. 1 [text no longer online]). NDP MP Paul Dewar makes a great to-do about Afghanistan and energy. That is simply silly. Afghanistan has no role in the production or transportation of Central Asian oil, the big prize in this great game, and only a potential, not terribly significant, role regarding natural gas.

Most of that oil is in Kazakhstan, far to the west of Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan has no need for Afghanistan as a pipeline route. Kazakh oil is now exported by pipeline via Russia and to China. Kazakhstan is also, as the story notes, planning an oil pipeline (a natural gas pipeline is also under consideration) through its own territory to link up across the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan with the existing Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. This pipeline ends at the eastern Mediterranean in Turkey.

There are also plans to export Kazakh oil via Iran.

There is indeed a long-standing plan for a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and maybe India. But that is hardly a vital national security or capitalist interest for NATO members. Moreover, given current conditions, such a pipeline is not likely to be built for quite a while. In any case most of the gas would be for Pakistani and perhaps Indian consumption—not a major concern for other countries.

On the other hand, there are also plans to export Turkmen gas to Europe via a trans-Caspian pipeline. That plan is a lot more important to European NATO members (and the U.S.) than Afghan pipeline possibilities. In addition, plans are well advanced for a pipeline, to be completed in 2012, to export Turkmen gas via Russia. Once again the Afghan angle for Turkmen gas exports is pretty small beer by comparison.

Mark Collins
Ottawa, Ont.

Since then:

India formally joins Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan gas pipeline project

Mark C.

Posted by markc at April 28, 2008 09:11 AM