Energy Security in the Caspian Basin

The Caspian region is considered to be one of the next oil and gas frontiers of the post Cold War era. Along with the re-distribution of political power and the emergence of new balances after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the continuous waves of change have also had significant effects on the prospects for development of energy resources in the region.

The objective of this seminar is to present a model in order to understand and predict the outcome of the policies of the major actors (governments and companies) in the development and marketing of Caspian Sea energy resources. More specifically, the purpose is to identify the principal factors and their interactions in energy security of the region in general and selecting export routes for the energy resources of the Caspian Basin in particular.While doing this the basic hypothesis in this model is that despite what the rules of economics may dictate, it is politics that makes the difference and changes the energy policy choices in the Caspian region. Political issues more than economic factors are the major and most important factors in determining resource development strategy and energy security in this region.

The principal inputs to the development of the model is based on analyses of (1) the development of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline project, and (2) the determination of the export route for Kazakhstan’s giant Kashagan offshore oil field. Such a predictive model can also be applied to other countries in the region, or other similar resource-rich regions of the world.