Work on Iran pipeline to intensify

Kazakhstan announced on Thursday its determination to construct an export pipeline from western Kazakhstan to Iran, delivering a sharp blow to US efforts to bring Kazakh oil from Azerbaijan to Turkey, bypassing both Iran and Russia, an AFP report said on Friday. According to a statement by the Kazakh foreign ministry, despite the pipeline’s construction being “hindered by the American politics of sanctions against Iran,” the Kazakh government “considered it expedient to intensify work on the completion of a feasibility study of the project.” The US had lobbied hard for the Baku-Ceylan pipeline scheme from Azerbaijan to Turkey’s port city of Ceylan on the Mediterranean Sea. However, according to the report, independent experts and leading international oil companies view the Iranian alternative as more economical and reliable, providing an economically profitable access to oil markets in the Asian and Pacific region through the Gulf for oil producers working in Kazakhstan, particularly those on the Caspian sea shelf.