6139008-History-of-Money

over billions of rubles in unpaid taxes. The former Russian Prime Minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, is also a former chiefexecutive of Gazprom, and depending whom you believe, is either a secret millionaire with immense power, or the onlyformer Soviet bureaucrat who failed to get a share when the government gas industry was privatized.The problems of the other fragments of the Soviet Union are even more compelling and interesting, however. Somerepublics ( Ukraine and Belarus are the best examples) have no oil resources, and are dependent on supplies down the oldpipeline system from Russia: essentially, the Russians can hold these countries to economic or political ransom for theirfuel supplies. It is not an accident that both Belarus and the Ukraine have recently negotiated closer economic ties withRussia, in spite of the considerable distrust built up over the years of economic domination from Moscow. The Ukraine,desperate for energy, continues to operate its dangerous nuclear reactors at Chernobyl, next to the notorious reactor thatexploded in 1986, because it has no choice. Without billions of dollars in aid, the Ukraine cannot afford to take properremedial action to make Chernobyl safe, or to close the remaining plants. Armenia, cut off from its own pipeline supplybecause of religious wars with its neighbor Azerbaijan, recently re-opened a Chernobyl-style nuclear reactor which hadbeen closed since 1989 on safety grounds. Again, there was no real choice: electricity supplies were down to a few hoursa day even in the capital.However, the most interesting developments are being played out in the former Soviet republics that do have abundantreserves of oil and gas. Azerbaijan contains the giant fields around Baku, which have been producing for a century. It wasamong the oil workers of Baku that the young Stalin learned his trade of fomenting revolution, riot, and sabotage, and itwas the lure of the oilfields of Baku that drew the German army into the Caucasus in an ill-fated offensive in 1942.However, the oilfields are old, the infrastructure is decayed, and the pipelines that export the oil all go into Russia. TheAzeris could perhaps renovate their fields, and go offshore to exploit promising new territory under the Caspian Sea, butthey would always be subject to a Russian stranglehold on the export pipelines. A look at a map brings home thegeopolitical difficulties faced by the Azeris. All routes that would take their oil to Western markets have problems. Theeasiest route would use existing pipelines through Russia to the Black Sea, but that gives control to Russia. The nexteasiest route is through Iran to the existing network that delivers oil to ports on the Persian Gulf. But the Azeris areancient enemies of the Persians: many of the inhabitants of northwest Iran are ethnic Azeris, and neither country truststhe other.To the west, a pipeline through Georgia to the Black Sea would be possible, but Georgia is torn by civil war and is indanger of being blackmailed back into Russian control. The most sensible pipeline would pass through Armenia to Turkeyand the Mediterranean (the Turks and Azeris are Turkic peoples who share a linguistic, religious, and cultural heritage).But the Azeris and Armenians have been at war intermittently for years, a particularly nasty and brutal religious war, andit is vanishingly unlikely that the Azeris would allow the Armenians control over their oil exports in the foreseeable future.Even the Azeri-Georgia pipeline route passes through a part of Azerbaijan that is seriously threatened by the RussianarmedArmenian invaders who currently control some Azeri territory. The most likely scenario is in the process ofdeveloping. The Azeris have signed contracts with a consortium of Western oil companies to renovate and extend thefields. As I write this, Amoco and BP have 17% each, the Azeris hold 10%, and three other US companies are involved.The Turkish government has 7%, and the Russian oil company Lukoil, which runs the pipeline, has 10%. A pipelinethrough Russia to the Black Sea at Novorossiysk already exists. What the Azeris need is some sort of guarantee that thepipeline will not be closed off arbitrarily, which explains the offer of 10% to Lukoil, to give the Russians a financial interestin keeping it open: a share in the proceeds. This is not an ideal solution, but it looks like the best of a set of bad choices.The Turks are involved because oil will cross the Black Sea from Novorossiysk in tankers, either directly through theBosphorus, or through pipelines across Turkey to the Mediterranean.The pipeline from Baku to Novorossiysk runs directly through the city of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. As everyoneknows, the Chechens want independence from Russia. The Russians are unwilling to concede independence, partlybecause of the precedent it would set for other similar areas, but largely, I suspect, because that would yield control ofthe pipeline to still another set of hands. The Russians have recently taken Grozny in a brutal battle that left many deadon both sides, and the Chechens are still fighting a bitter guerilla war in the hills. But the Russians now control Groznyand the plains, and the pipeline. I don't think there's any question that the Russian invasion was controlled by the pipelinemore than any other factor. The geopolitics of oil has far-reaching implications that we have to understand if we are toappreciate the complexities of the modern World order. Kazakhstan has a supergiant oilfield, Tengiz, whose current outputis also exported through Russia on existing pipelines. Since independence, Kazakhstan has signed contracts with Mobil todevelop some smaller fields, and with Chevron to expand and modernize production from Tengiz. The first phase at Tengizis complete, but the project is suffering slow strangulation because of Russian control of the pipeline. Only limitedamounts are allowed down it, bound for Russia, and in return, Chevron receives the same amount of oil delivered toGermany from fields elsewhere in Russia. By incorporating Russian partners, Chevron has negotiated a new pipeline thatis to be built through Russia to Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, to that Tengiz oil would be exported directly to Worldmarkets.Until that pipeline is built, both Kazakhstan and Chevron are looking at a losing proposition, because current exports toRussia are too small to make money: Chevron is breaking even on current production, but any reasonable return on itscapital requires shipping ten times as much as it does now. Kazakhstan's problem is that there is no other feasiblepipeline route: Tengiz is in the north of Kazakhstan. The alternative, through Iran, is just as risky in political terms, andthe Kazakhs and Iranians have no better relations than do the Kazakhs and Russians. In any case, no American companyis willingly going to build its pipelines through hostile territory, and Iran certainly counts as hostile for Americans in theforeseeable future. Chevron's problem is that it has "bet the company" on Tengiz: at a projected cost of $20 billion, it isThe Hidden History Of Money & New World Order Usury Secrets Revealed at last! Page 626