Energy is a delicate and potentially divisive area of cooperation in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). “Competition between suppliers tends to control relations but when the whole pipeline infrastructure [for gas and oil] will be in place and you have access to alternative sources you will have a better basis for shaping regional cohesion and regulation,” Ambassador Altai Efendiev of Azerbaijan, a country which represents an alternative to Russian hydro-carbons for the region, told the Turkish Daily News.
Ministers from BSEC countries laid out a general policy to further discussions on energy security in Sochi, the Russian Federation, in September 2006, and will continue these at this week's summit.
Efendiev said that the possibility of more pipelines through the Black Sea would not be tackled at the meeting, adding that pipeline talks are highly political bilateral, trilateral and multilateral processes. The Republic of Azerbaijan is the Country Coordinator for the working group on energy for the term May 2005 - April 2007.
Not just national
“Conflicting interests are natural interests, as everyone is keen to secure, ensure, and diversify energy supplies, but energy cannot be seen exclusively from a national perspective. We need to marry and match regional and national approaches,” said Efendiev.The International Center for Black Sea Studies is compiling an overview of national energy strategies for this purpose. BSEC members will coordinate their energy policies on the basis of this study. “We are not mature for this yet,” added Efendiev. The national energy strategies and resulting energy policies of the countries must be transparent,” reads the Sochi statement.
The Black Sea Region is both a supplier, a consumer and an important transit corridor for energy. Ministers from BSEC countries have agreed in principle that the synchronization of energy strategies will require some correction in the sharing of risks, which cannot be all concentrated on the side of either the supplier, or consumer or transporter of resources, and that these imbalances do not facilitate the energy security of the BSEC region in the long run.
“If you want to support regional integration the infrastructure is fundamental, because more infrastructure diminishes the possibility of exercising political leverage. I believe we can gradually converge most divergent approaches,” said Efendiev.
Enhancing the energy transportation and transmission infrastructure and its efficient use in order to develop further stable, cost-reflective, non-discriminatory and transparent market conditions also involves technical issues. “There are feasibility studies related to differences in electricity networks to be carried out for the planned Black Sea Electric Energy Ring,” said Efendiev.
(Turkish Daily News)