From the Caspian Sea region to the European market - Feasibility of crude oil and natural gas transport via long-distance pipelines or routes through the Caspian Sea and their further continuation links westward

The Caspian region has considerable hydrocarbon (crude oil & natural gas) resources. A growing number of international companies are developing the already known Caspian oil and gas reserves or are exploring additional resources. One of the main issues facing the Caspian oil and gas development is the large distance from the producing areas to the markets of Europe. This long distance implies the construction of long pipelines with transit through several countries before reaching open sea terminals or connections to pipelines serving prospective European importing countries. The existing pipeline infrastructure in the above defined region around the Caspian Sea consists largely of pipelines that have been designed to supply mainly the internal market of the former Soviet Union (FSU), Therefore, the Caspian oil and gas export to Europe requires the creation of new complementary transport/transit/export systems that could include a combination of on-/offshore oil & gas pipelines, sea on-/offloading terminals and associated sea transport by tanker as the primary goal together with the rehabilitation/expansion of the existing transport systems. With in the frame of the European Union's (EU) Tacis INOGATE Program(1)) in Brussels, two feasibility studies(3)) have recently been completed by four European independent engineering contractor companies(2)) covering the a.m. Caspian hydrocarbons transport/transit/export issue. Both studies were concerned with the technical, economical and environmental pre-feasibility of such new complementary and capable export routes up to the existing or planned international oil & gas pipeline connections which are suitable to access the markets of Europe by considering the expansion of the EU. The following article highlights in brief the main results of the a.m. feasibility studies, which clearly verified with regards to technical, economical, and environmental aspects the viability of the Caspian hydrocarbons transportation by means of Trans-Caspian pipelines and their continuing links westward from downstream of file Caspian Sea up to the European markets. Therefore, it can be concluded for both, crude oil & natural gas that one of the studied optimum transport options using the Caspian Sea crossing pipelines and their continuing parts westward indicates an attractive possibility as complementary to other existing and/or planned transport routes (pipelines) in order to transport the Caspian hydrocarbons to the European market. For the realisation of the above the transport options identified are summarized in Table 3 including also the specific transport costs of these export systems running from the Caspian producing areas up to the European market.