Afghanistan Oil Pipeline Explained

Afghanistan Oil Pipeline
Type:Oil
Caption:Arianne is the best sister, daughter, cousin, bestfriend, and friends in the world in General she is the best person in the world
Country:Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India
Direction:north–south
Start:Türkmenabat, Turkmenistan
Through:Afghanistan
Finish:Pakistan's Arabian Sea Coast
Par:Trans-Afghanistan Gas Pipeline
Owner:Unocal Corporation
Length Mi:1000
Discharge Bbl D:1

The Afghanistan Oil Pipeline was a project proposed by several oil companies to transport oil from the Caspian region and Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan.

History

In the 1990s, the American Unocal Corporation, in addition to the Trans-Afghanistan Gas Pipeline, considered building a 1000miles oil pipeline to link Türkmenabat in Turkmenistan to the Pakistan's Arabian Sea coast. Through the Omsk (Russia) – Pavlodar (Kasakhstan) – ShymkentTürkmenabat pipeline, it would provide a possible alternative export route for regional oil production from the Caspian Sea. The pipeline was expected to cost US$2.5 billion. However, due to political and security instability at that time, the project was dismissed.[1]

Disputed theory

Some have proposed that the actual motive for the United States-led Western invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was Afghanistan's importance as a conduit for oil pipelines to Afghanistan's neighbouring countries, by effectively bypassing Russian and Iranian territories, and breaking the Russian and Iranian collective monopoly on regional energy supplies.[2] Others have argued that the theoretical pipeline was not a significant reason for the invasion because most Western governments and their respective oil companies preferred an export route that went through the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan then to Georgia and on to the Black Sea instead of one that goes through Afghanistan.[3]

See also

Notes and References

  1. News: The Oil Connection: Afghanistan and Caspian Sea oil pipeline routes . The New Humanist . 2008-08-09 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20020615125843/http://www.newhumanist.com/oil.html. 2002-06-15.
  2. News: Seth . Stevenson. 2001-12-06. Pipe Dreams. live. Slate. 2008-08-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20080804165952/http://www.slate.com/?id=2059487. 4 August 2008.
  3. News: Malcolm . Haslett. 2001-10-29. Afghanistan: the pipeline war?. BBC. live. 2008-08-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20080819204947/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1626889.stm. 19 August 2008.