Paper: Moscow Fails to Convince Baku to Join ‘Anti-Georgian Bloc’

Russia’s attempts to involve Azerbaijan in its “anti-Georgian bloc can be regarded as failed” after Baku warned that it may reduce, or even stop pumping its oil through the Baku- Novorossiysk pipeline, the Russian business daily Kommersant said on December 4.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev instructed his government to estimate the economic consequences of this decision on December 1, after Russia’s Gazprom said it will increase gas price for Azerbaijan up to USD 230 per 1000 cubic meters.

Azerbaijan exports about 4,1 million tons of oil annually through the Transneft-controlled pipeline via Russia. According to the Kommersant, Azerbaijan’s possible decision to halt this export route will deprive Russia’s state-backed pipeline monopoly Transneft of an annual USD 25 million transit fee. Baku-Novorossiysk is a competitor pipeline to the newer Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.

Azerbaijani media sources have recently speculated that Russia was insisting that Azerbaijan not sell its gas from the Shah-Deniz field to Georgia, which is desperately trying to find alternative sources of energy supplies to ease dependency on Russia’s expensive gas.

The Kommersant said that although initially there were some signs of Baku yielding to this pressure, now it seems that Azerbaijan is ready for a long-term conformation with Russia. “And it is not likely that Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov’s visit to Azerbaijan [scheduled for December 4] will be an easy one,” according to the newspaper.

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