Page 7 - FSUOGM Week 49 2019

FSUOGM COMMENTARY FSUOGM
Iran pushes for joint Caspian
work with Azerbaijan
Iran and Azerbaijan have rarely agreed on matters concerning the Caspian Sea
AZERBAIJAN
IRANIAN President Hassan Rouhani said on December 4 that Tehran is actively pursuing oil projects with Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea, according to IRNA.
The news agency referred to a conversation RouhanihadwithFirstDeputyPrimeMinister of Azerbaijan Shahin Mustafayev.
Iran and Azerbaijan have rarely agreed on Caspian Sea affairs in recent years, with, for instance, Tehran dragging its feet on ratifica- tion of a landmark convention on its legal status signed by its five littoral states last year.
Iran’s reluctance to approve the convention is hindering projects including the Alborz/Alov hydrocarbon block which Tehran and Baku both lay claim to. Ratification in Iran is down to politi- cal infighting by different factions over supposed Russian attempts to claim “Iran’s half ” of the Caspian Sea. The Rouhani administration has dismissed this perspective, citing other countries which also share the body of water. Several non- aligned nationalist groups in Iran believe Tehran has ceded much of its Caspian Sea territory to Russia in exchange for support against the US sanctions and a “maximum pressure” campaign directed at Iran.
Rouhani told Mustafayev that the Islamic Republic intended to follow up on the imple- mentation of joint oil exploration and extraction projects in the Caspian Sea and hoped that the issues involved would be closely scrutinised at the meeting of their countries’ joint commission, official energy news agency SHANA reported.
He also reportedly emphasised that Iran is
pursuing bilateral and trilateral relations to fur- ther develop Tehran-Baku and Tehran-Moscow and Tehran-Baku-Moscow relations and “seeks to strengthen the transit route between our two countries and cooperation in the field of energy andelectricity”.
The presidents of Iran and Azerbaijan signed protocols for the development of the Caspian Sea deepwater oil block claimed by both sides last year. The pair agreed to recover the oil on a 50/50 basis. Khazar (Caspian) Exploration and Production Co. (KEPCO) was lined up to run Iran’s side of the contract should it go ahead.
KEPCO director Mohsen Delaviz said at the time that “various options are under review”, including the formation of a joint venture between KEPCO and Azeri national oil com- pany Socar, which might attract further invest- ment from third parties that would be used to accelerate project delivery.
Delaviz added that the development of the proposed field could cost around $10bn.
In July 1998, a production sharing agreement (PSA) signed by Azerbaijan and a consortium of Western oil majors led by BP permitted the consortium to conduct seismic operations at the Alov/Alborz block. However, Iran quickly protested against the Azeri move and created KEPCO as part of a countermeasure in claiming the same field.
The situation deteriorated between the two sides until an Iranian warship and two military aircraft threatened two Azerbaijani exploration boats sent to the field on behalf of BP in July
Week 49 11•December•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P7