The total volume of oil production in the Caspian region by all countries that border the Caspian Sea already amounts to about 200 million tons. But, since this sea is inland, with all the groans surrounded by land, the main problem is the transportation of oil to the points of sale. Since the most profitable and cheapest way of its transportation is by sea, by supertankers of large displacement, the transportation of Caspian oil is carried out through pipelines laid to international sea routes.
Taking into account the fact that in the OPEC countries the free annual volumes of oil are about 600 million tons per year, the main condition for the entry of Caspian oil on the world market is the profitability of its transportation. It loses in this respect to Arab oil, but wins over Russian and North American oil. Taking this into account, the most attractive markets for Caspian oil are Northern Iran and the Black Sea countries. Oil produced 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 volume of oil produced in the southern part of the region is transported to another Black Sea port - Batumi, which belongs to Georgia. Countries - exporters of oil produced in the northern part of the Caspian are not very happy with their dependence on Russia, which, moreover, is their direct a competitor in world markets. But, nevertheless, the second stage of the pipeline is currently being built, which belongs to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, transporting it along the Tengiz - Novorossiysk route. To date, several more projects for the transportation of Caspian oil have been developed, which were designed taking into account different price conditions, so the final decision it has not yet been decided which option will be chosen. Foreign investors plan to spend up to $ 125-130 billion in order to ensure by 2015 the total export of oil 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, but there is still no single operator that could ensure the transit of oil 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 in the world energy market with the same Middle Eastern oil and, most likely, the transport corridors for it will remain the same in the near future - through the seaports of Novorossiysk and Batumi.
