Page 6 - MEOG Week 33

MEOG PIPeLInes & transPort MEOG
Detained Iranian tanker en route to Greece
Iran
AN Iranian tanker previously called the Grace 1, but renamed the Adrian Darya 1, is now report- edly headed towards Greece following its release from British detention in Gibraltar, Reuters reported on August 19.
e Adrian Darya 1 was allegedly heading to Syria, British authorities said following the deployment of Royal Marines on July 4 to seize the ship whilst it was at the port near southern Spain. Rumours circulated at the time the true destination of the ship was a southern European country such as Greece.
e fully laden supertanker weighed anchor off Gibraltar at about 11 p.m. CET, Refinitiv ship-tracking data showed early on Monday morning, which was later con rmed by other
tracking so ware.
Greek authorities did not comment on the
destination of the Adrian Darya 1.
The uS attempted to bring about an elev-
enth-hour seizure of the supertanker on August 17, in a bid to stop the ship’s exit from British ter- ritorial waters around the Gibraltar peninsula.
Gibraltar authorities threw out the uS appeal to prolong the seizure of the vessel because it was bound by Eu regulations. Meanwhile, Iran still holds the British- agged Swedish-owned Stena Impero tanker o the coast of southern Iran, and said the Adrian Darya’s release was not con- nected to the case of the latter ship.
on August 19, Tehran said it had warned Washington not to try to seize the tanker.™
Turkmenistan: Chinese, European firms get behind Trans-Caspian pipeline
CasPIan
A group of Chinese and European compa- nies allegedly plans to realise the long-delayed Trans-Caspian gas pipeline project between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, pro-Turkmen media has claimed.
Representatives from Germany’s Edison Technologies and MMEC Mannesmann, France’s Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions and China’s Sinopec held talks on August 13 with Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov at the rst Caspian economic forum in the Turk- men tourist zone of Avaza, the orient.tm news agency reported. During their meeting, the com- panies expressed their readiness to construct the subsea pipe.
The Trans-Caspian project has been dis- cussed for decades but has never moved beyond blueprints because of opposition from Iran and Russia. e pipeline would allow Turkmenistan to access the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), designed to pump gas from Azerbaijan across Georgia and Turkey and into southeast Europe. Russia, already Europe’s largest gas supplier and Iran, which has its own eyes on the market, want to avoid giving a competitor an opening.
“Having joined a consortium, we can now implement such a project as a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan along the bottom of the Caspian Sea,” Edison Technologies’ general director Kasapoglu Edison told orient.tm. “ e European market is interested in it, and we con- sider it a great step to return to the promising Caspian region.”
According to orient.tm, the project as dis- cussed at the meeting would involve the con- struction of a 300-km pipeline, along with gas wells, gas treatment and compressor stations. Turkmen officials have previously discussed building a 30bn cubic metre per year pipeline to Azerbaijan – matching the capacity of the com- pleted East-West pipeline from Turkmenistan’s eastern gas heartland to the Caspian shore.
A landmark convention on the Caspian Sea’s status signed a year ago would allow Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to build the pipeline without the consent of other Caspian nations. Iran and Russia are yet to ratify the treaty, however.
The convention also states that cross-bor- der infrastructure needs to comply with agreed environmental standards, giving Iran and Rus- sia some room to potentially block the pipeline’s construction.
Comments at the forum by Behrouz Nam- dari, a representative at Iran’s national oil company, suggest Tehran intends to use this argument.
“ e construction of a gas pipeline from the east to the west of the Caspian Sea could cause severe damage to the region’s ecology... Iran is opposedtoitsconstruction,”hesaidinaspeech.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, also present at the forum, said he was “absolutely convinced that all major projects in the Caspian Sea should undergo a thorough and impartial environmental evaluation involving specialists from all Caspian countries.”™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 33 20•August•2019