The total volume of oil production in the Caspian region by all countries that border the Caspian Sea is already about 200 million tons. But, since this sea is inland, surrounded by land with all moans, the main problem is the transportation of oil to points of sale. Since the most profitable and cheapest way to transport it is by sea, with large displacement supertankers, the transportation of Caspian oil is carried out through pipelines laid to international sea highways.
Taking into account the fact that in OPEC countries the free annual oil volumes are about 600 million tons per year, the main condition for Caspian oil to enter the world market is the profitability of its transportation. In this regard, it loses Arab oil, but outperforms Russian and North American. Given this, the most attractive sales markets for Caspian oil are Northern Iran and the Black Sea countries. Oil, which is extracted in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, which is almost half of all production, is transported to the nearest seaport, which is Novorossiysk. The second half of the oil produced in the southern part of the region is transported to another Black Sea port - Batumi, which belongs to Georgia. The countries - exporters of oil produced in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, are not very pleased with their dependence on Russia, which, moreover, is their direct competitor in world markets. But, nevertheless, the second phase of the pipeline, which belongs to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium transporting it along the Tengiz-Novorossiysk route, is currently under construction. To date, several more Caspian oil transportation projects have been developed that were designed taking into account different pricing conditions, so the final decision about which option will be selected is not yet accepted. The plans of foreign investors include spending up to 125-130 billion dollars in order to ensure by 2015 the total oil export from this region in the amount of up to 200 million tons. Almost a third of this amount is planned to be spent on the construction of pipelines and transport tariffs. However, there is no single operator that could provide oil transit from the Caspian to Europe and Asia. We can say that in the next few years, Caspian oil will not be able to seriously compete on the world energy market with the same Middle Eastern oil and, most likely, transport corridors will remain the same for it in the near future - through the seaports of Novorossiysk and Batumi.
