Oil pipeline to Vlora

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

This little item joins up the oil strategy. The eurasian area must be tied
into the European industrial area, preferably by providing cheap raw
material like fuel.

Note how the pipeline skirts Kosovo.

BTW I agree of course that NATO must have contingency plans to invade
again, or at least bomb, if Montenegro is prevented from declaring
independence by the presence of federal troops on its soil controlled from
Belgrade. But some of it is sabre rattling to try to weaken the political
impact of those troops. NATO is unlikely to want to repeat the Kosovo war
the way it actually took place.

Besides they have another problem to finesse: groups of former UCK are
concentraing on irredentist activity over the eastern border in Serbia
proper in an area that was not ethnically cleansed in 1878. Whether to
encourage them or neutralise them cannot be an easy pragmatic choice. No
wonder they still hope that Serbia will go through the transformation to
bourgeois democracy that Croatia recently did.

Chris Burford

London


            THE EUROPEAN FOUNDATION
            Intelligence Digest Issue No. 101
            11th - 24th August 2000

            Balkan pipeline 'feasible'

            The Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil Pipeline Corporation
based in New York
            state, and the governments of Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania,
have stated
            that a US-sponsored feasibility study of the proposed
Trans-Balkan Oil
            Pipeline project has been completed and delivered to the
contracting
            parties. The report provides a "commercially compelling
proposition" to the
            major oil companies who are developing their oil fields in the
Caspian Sea
            who have chosen the Black Sea export route to the
Mediterranean Sea, said
            Gligor Tashkovich, executive vice-president of AMBO. The large,
            recently-developed oil fields "confirm the requirement for
multiple export
            routes out of the Caspian region," said Tashkovich. "We
believe that the
            Trans-Balkan Oil Pipeline will be one of the more significant
routes to be
            developed." The $1 million study updated and enlarged the
project's original
            feasibility study of 1996.  AMBO is developing a $1.1 billion
pipeline,
            which will carry crude from the Bulgarian Black Sea port of
Burgas to the
            Albanian Adriatic Sea port of Vlora. The pipeline has a
projected throughput
            of 750,000 barrels of oil per day.