Robert M. Cutler on Energy and Eurasia

PetroKazakhstan and all that

Fred Halliday has an interesting report of a conference in Cambridge, although it is more of a survey, albeit knowledgeable, of the whole CIS-space. For what it's worth, this I find characteristic of the openDemocracy site in general: it's good for general orientation and some commentary, but it is seldom that the specialists who write there give the full benefit of their specialized knowledge to the reader, in terms of explicating detailed background or bringing clear analytical power to bear. As always, there are exceptions, but this article isn't one of them

     Amongst the commentaries and reports on the CNPC/PetroKazakhstan affair are an articles at Jamestown Foundation, Asia Times onLine, and Gulf Times, the last of which plays up the Russia-vs.-China angle. According to Tehran Times

How Chinese economic growth threatens global environment

A Greenpeace report finally puts things together about how the Chinese economic miracle is helping to drive global ecological degradation. This involves not just energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission but also forestry, pollution from personal automobiles and more. See this summary from a mainstream British newspaper.

...but Lukoil Wants to Play Too

Lukoil, which was partner of PetroKazakhstan in developing the Turgai deposits that will be pumped through Atasu-Alashankou, has asserted a pre-emptive right to purchase those assets and is reportedly in negotiations to buy CNPC's stake. Recall that CNPC was recently chosen by PetroKazakhstan over an Indian suitor for its operations in KZ. Meanwhile Lukoil is going to acquire the assets of Nelson Resources in KZ before CNPC has a chance to bid for them.

Kazakhstan-China Energy Ties Tighten...

Not only is the Atasu-Alashankou pipeline making definite progress towards being finished  by the end of the year (or soon thereafter), with an initial throughput of 210,000 barrels per day that is projected to double when full capacity is reached, but also Kazakhstan is looking at China as an important future export market for natural gas. Uzakbai Karabalin, head of the state oil and gas firm KazMunaiGaz, asserts that gas output would skyrocket from 6.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2003 to more than 50 bcm by 2015, and that "the Chinese side has been offered several routes" for KZ gas shipments into China's "East-West" (or better, "West-East") pipeline from Xinjiang to the Han population centres on the Pacific Rim.