...the $4 billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which opened with much fanfare in July and links Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. At the ribbon-cutting, the 1,109-mile pipeline was hailed as "the Silk Road of the 21st century," bypassing Russia to bring oil from the world's third-largest reserves in the Caspian to a Turkish port on the Mediterranean, where it can be loaded onto tankers to supply global markets.
Kazakhstan, the largest country in central Asia, has three of the world's richest hydrocarbon fields. One of them, Kashagan, was discovered in the Caspian five years ago. It is believed to rank among the five largest fields on Earth and is expected to start producing in the next few years. Kazakhstan produced 1.2 million barrels a day last year, but it is expected to pump 3 million barrels a day by 2015-almost as much as Iran. Chevron is spending over $5 billion to expand production there, its largest project anywhere. "There are very few places in the world that have still untapped reserves and the openness in the business environment," says Roman Vassilenko, a Kazakh government spokesman. He says 70 percent of Kazakh oil production is owned by foreign companies...
But still, as more oil is pumped out, Kazakhstan must choose between exporting it north through Russia, east through China, or west through an expanded BTC pipeline. The United States is gearing up to make its pitch. Later this month, Nazarbayev will come to the United States for the first time since 2001, visiting the White House and the Bush family compound in Maine. Energy, obviously, will top the agenda...
