Britain backs Caspian Sea to Mediterranean pipeline
The UK government announced financial backing for a controversial £ 2.2 bn pipeline to carry oil from the
Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. Mike O'Brien, the Foreign Office minister, told MPs on the day before the
parliamentary recess that he had approved credit cover amounting to nearly £ 100 mm for the British-led
consortium, headed by BP, to build the 1,087-mile pipeline.
The scheme -- one of the key projects approved by Tony Blair and George Bush to provide new sources of oil outside
the Gulf -- runs across a highly volatile political region from Azerbaijan through Georgia and skirts Kurdish
minority settlements in eastern Turkey.
British-based human rights and environmental groups have been fighting the scheme, warning that the pipeline would
reignite conflicts and increase global warming. There are also concerns about the dangers of oil spillages in the
Turkish port of Ceyhan and concern that it runs through an earthquake zone.
Some 15 groups in 10 countries delivered a dossier to Hilary Benn, the international development secretary, saying
the project breached World Bank lending guidelines on 173 separate counts.
But Mr O'Brien told earlier: "This scheme was going to go ahead anyway and we decided that with proper monitoring of
the environment and social issues it was better to be 'inside the tent' rather than outside it. BP has a good record
on the environment and the international development department thought there was a good development case."
Nick Hildyard, a director of the Corner House, one of the human rights groups fighting the scheme, said: "All the
groups are now likely to challenge this in the European court."