The Oil Industry and
Crossing the Caspian Sea
The wait was intolerable. Waves of mania sent me and my travel partner, Nathan, from delirious peak to grim through and back again. Our boat rocked with swell as if to emphasise the point, and it made me feel queasy. Despite arriving to the Kazakh coastline after only 20 hours of our voyage, we were stationary, and had been for three days and four nights. We had watched the indolent sun journey its arc through the sky, and watched the moon gradually change shape, night on night, sliver by sliver. I breathed in the salty air, and stared at the nigh time sparkles marking Aqtau, and with it Kazakhstan, through the dark. It felt close enough to touch and taunted me. “Maybe I should do it” I thought. Was I actually thinking of diving into the largest enclosed inland body of water on earth, and swimming for it?
Baku, Azerbaijan, was the glamorous point of our departure a
few days earlier. I sometimes found it hard not to feel like an ancient prince
in Baku. In 1941 Baku was responsible for supplying over 70% of all the oil
extracted in the whole of the Soviet Union, earning it the nickname “Black Gold
Capital”. Evidence of the wealth this brought was everywhere. On a walk, Nathan
had squealed in disbelief, “There’s marble columns in the underpasses?!”. But there was a dark side. As I was to find out,
our journey from Azerbaijan across the Caspian Sea represented a microcosm of
one of the biggest environmental issues of our time.
As we boarded our battered ferry, the motors shook the boat
into life. Stuffed with intercontinental trucks and a large contingent of
Turkish drivers, the ship started to make its way out of Baku’s famous port.
Looking back towards the mainland, views of onshore oil fields were obstructed
by the silhouettes of offshore oil fields. Mechanical clicks and squeaks faded,
and Baku contracted behind us into a solitary pixel on my camera as we chugged
out into nothing but blue space.
The hours passed and there was not a single sighting of
land. Up on deck, we spent an age jBlack Gold. Extraction of this most
valuable commodity presents all kinds of risks to water quality, and many
islands in the Caspian have suffered reduced populations of marine birds
because of resulting ecological damage. Worryingly, recent proposals to build
pipelines crossing the sea have multiplied the potential threats.
ust looking out over the featureless seascape, being buffered by the bitter winds, and staying warm by chasing each other around like schoolchildren after lunch. Despite the seemingly desolate environment, the Caspian Sea supports a diverse and unique ecosystem.
Luckily, Nathan and I, were treated to a little comedy to
take our mind off it. Our boat was captained by a real-life caricature. He was a
short, stocky Azeri fellow who had plated all of his teeth in gold, and seemed
to be forever smoking a cigarette that never burned away. Glass of Vodka in
hand and wearing only a vest and trousers, the captain periodically made his
way down to the dining room to enjoy the banter of the Turkish truck drivers as
they whittled the hours away laughing and playing backgammon. Embedded in an
impromptu Russian lesson he tried to give Nathan and I, was a piece of
geography. “Rooshia”, he barked, pointing North-West, and glaring at Nathan to
make sure he understood. Spinning clockwise with his arm outstretched like a
human compass, our captain reeled off the remaining littoral states. “Kaazakheestan,
Tourkmeneestan, Eeeran!!”. “Aaaaaand”, he drawled before pausing for dramatic
effect, “AZERBAIJAN!!!!”. His golden grin was wider than our vessel.
Gaining collaboration between these nations with respect to
the Caspian is difficult. How the resources are divided is an issue yet to be
fully resolved by the five nations, and how the region is to be protected even
less so. The sea represents a place of compromise: compromise between the need
for oil and the need to protect the environment, and compromise between the
conflicting interests of its encompassing nations. I had no idea that this
would be a journey across such a politically and environmentally contested
arena.
I turned in for the night, and slept badly on my steel bunk.
The following morning was particularly clear, and I peered out across the still
water. It looked like hammered pewter. It
was lucky that I decided against a chilly attempt for the shore, because as far
as the eye could see are oil tankers from every corner of the Caspian, sat
silently, as deadly giant barricades, waiting for their turn to unload their
precious cargo.
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