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Energy Security: Potential for EU-GCC Cooperation Aden and Indian Ocean, and will be discussed in the paragraph devoted to security in the high seas. Panama Panama is not important for Europe and has limited importance for oil traffic globally. Approximately 0.5 mb/d of crude oil and products transit through the Panama Canal. Large oil carriers cannot pass through the canal. suez The Suez Canal, like the Panama Canal, is not an international waterway, but a transit facility entirely controlled by Egypt. Consequently, acts of piracy or terrorism against ships in transit would indicate a severe lapse of security conditions in the country, which appears unlikely at this time. In 2008, 146.7 million tons of crude oil and products transited through Suez, equal to 3 mb/d. Since the canal has no locks, the only serious limiting factors for the passage of tankers are draft and height due to the Suez Canal Bridge. The current channel depth of the canal allows for a maximum of 16 m of draft, meaning many fully laden supertankers are too deep to pass through fully laden. Improvements are envisaged so that in 2010, the maximum draft will increase to 22 m, in order to allow supertankers. Until then, supertankers must discharge part of their cargo at the entry of the channel and reload it at the other end, transported along the way by the SUMED pipeline, which has a capacity of about 2.5 million bbl/d. All in all, the Suez Canal/SUMED system, notwithstanding past interruptions, strikes the observer as being very reliable and unlikely to face interruptions. turkish straits The prospect of greatly increased tanker traffic across the Turkish Straits – in particular, the Bosphorus – has been a cause for concern for the Turkish government and international observers for years now. Natural factors include the shape of the straits, with the narrowest point in the Bosphorus no more than 700m across, numerous bends, and significant currents. 0 Institutional factors include the fact that according to the Montreux Convention of 1936, passage through the straits is free, to the extent than even pilotage is not obligatory and no tolls are imposed. Consequently, no alternative commercial route can compete. The only cost for utilizing the Straits is the waiting time at the entrance, which of course discourages the installation of costly traffic regulation and control equipment. Environmental factors include, primarily, the consideration that the Bosphorus is today entirely encapsulated in the Istanbul urban area, and any accident would have immediate impact on a very large number of people. The number of tankers transiting the strait has reached an average of 28 per day, in excess of 10,000 per year in the last three years. Tankers sometimes have had to wait for permission to transit in the southbound direction. In short, traffic congestion at the Bosphorus adds to the cost of shipping but has not reached crisis proportions. The Turkish Straits are the sole outlet for oil exported from Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia through terminals located on the Black Sea. If the CPC is augmented as planned (1.35 mb/d by 2014), traffic through the Turkish Straits could well increase by 1 mb/d – approximately 45 percent above current levels. This would certainly represent a challenge for safety of navigation through the waterway. Investing in by-pass pipelines that may drastically reduce the number of tanker passages would appear to be wise policy. There are three main pipeline projects currently on the table: the Samsun/Ceyhan project (aka TAPCO - Trans-Anatolian Pipeline Company), the Burgas/ Alexandroupolis project and the Costanta/Trieste project (aka PEOP - Pan European Oil Pipeline). Baltic sea The Baltic Sea is an enclosed body of water, and an accident may have serious environmental consequences. In this, the Baltic is a case similar to the Mediterranean, only smaller and, consequently, possibly even more vulnerable. However, it is not appropriate to consider the whole sea as a choke
point. Rather, the difficulty may be defined as the passage of the Danish Straits, which is indeed very narrow. The potential for a major increase of Russian exports through the Baltic is therefore likely to raise issues for navigation through the Baltic Straits. 4.2 Threats to Navigation outside Choke Points An analysis of accidents and piracy attacks to oil tankers in particular shows that the largest number of significant events took place at a considerable distance from the “choke points” inviting a consideration of conditions of shipping in a much broader spectrum of situations. We shall discuss two specific categories of threat, which have attracted considerable attention in recent times: piracy attacks and pollution from accidents. Global Piracy According to the website of the ICC International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre (IMB), 10 piracy attacks around the world more than doubled to 240 from 114 during the first six months of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008. Confirming a trend already registered in previous months, the rise in overall numbers was due almost entirely to increased Somali pirate activity off the Gulf of Aden and east coast of Somalia, with 86 and 44 incidents reported, respectively. The IMB maintains a Live Piracy Map which records all actual and attempted attacks for the current year and the most recent four years. 11 It is evident from the map that attacks have been concentrated in three broad areas: • in the Gulf of Guinea, primarily in Nigeria, near Lagos or Port Harcourt • offshore Somalia • in the proximity of Singapore or offshore the east coast of peninsular Malaysia. In the case of Nigeria and Somalia, piracy at sea is obviously a reflection of political problems on land. For Nigeria, the government in charge has not succeeded in curbing domestic violence: this makes external intervention touchy, as the Threats to Oil Supply Security government should in principle call for outside support in combating piracy, and has not done so nor is it likely to do so. Similarly, piracy in offshore Malaysia is a problem because it is obviously the responsibility of the Malaysian government to deal with the issue. Somalia is a case of a failed state, and there is no expectation that a nonexistent Somali government may act to curb the phenomenon. It is also the most worrisome area because of the importance and daring of the attacks that have been perpetrated. The most recent and extraordinary case has been the hijacking of the Saudi tanker Sirius Star 450 miles off the coast of Kenya on November 17, 2008: all about this event has been unprecedented: the distance from the coast, the size of the vessel (318,000 DWT, 330 m of length, one of the largest tankers in the world), the volume of oil transported (2 million barrels), the ransom that was finally paid (reportedly $3 million). Thus, the hijacking of the Sirius Star represents a turning point in the record of piracy at sea and possibly also in the international reaction to this phenomenon. Obviously, if such a large ship can be successfully attacked, all ships are vulnerable. And if an attack can take place at such a distance from the coast, the discussion of choke points is pretty much irrelevant. Preventing and combating piracy must take an entirely new dimension. the Danger of oil spills in enclosed seas According to ITOPF (International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation),12the number of medium and large size spills has greatly decreased over the years. With the decrease in numbers, the total volume of oil spills has also decreased, although data show very clearly that a few very large accidents are responsible for most of the damage – therefore even a single large accident in the future (such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010) may change the picture quite radically. Limitations to freedom of navigation imposed because of environmental concerns may affect future European energy supply especially with respect to the Mediterranean Sea. The Baltic is also a problem, but much less oil transits through there. The Gulf, 1
Page 1 and 2: Gulf Research Center Foundation
Page 3: Contents Introduction 5 I. The Euro
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Page 73 and 74: SESSION IV: LNG and Gas Supplies to
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Page 89 and 90: Geopolitical Issues of Europe’s F
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Page 93 and 94: SESSION V: Renewable Sources in EU-
Page 95 and 96: • technologies, overall technical
Page 97 and 98: Figure 2: Overview of Opportunities
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world. Hence, renewable energy supp
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case. Figure 8 shows the developmen
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Overview of RES Characteristics and
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keep the RES surcharges for the ene
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in the electricity sector, particul
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References • • • • • •
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Energy Security: Potential for EU-G
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Gulf Research Center Foundation
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