The United States may have to abandon its trade sanctions against Iran, Iraq and Libya if it wants to avoid future international conflicts over oil, according to a congressionally-sponsored report.
"If global oil demand estimated for 2020 is reasonably correct and is to be satisfied, Iran, Iraq, and Libya should by then be producing at their full potential if other supplies have not been developed," said the three-volume study prepared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Released Wednesday, the report, titled "The Geopolitics of Energy into the 21st Century," examines availability of oil in the next 20 years and attempts to forecast geopolitical implications of the world's growing demand for crude.
It said worldwide energy demand was likely to grow more than 50 percent between now and 2020.
While in the industrialized world it will increase by 23 percent, it will more than double in developing countries, with Asia accounting for the bulk of the increase, the study projected.
"At some point during the next 20 years, the developing world will begin to consume more energy than the developed world," it stated. This shift in demand, according to the forecasters, will have far-reaching economic and geostrategic implications.
"Indeed, if estimates of future demand are reasonably correct, the Persian Gulf must expand oil production by almost 80 percent during 2000-2020, achievable perhaps if foreign investment is allowed to participate and if Iran and Iraq are free of sanctions," the authors of the study concluded.
An international oil embargo was imposed against Iraq in the wake of its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Baghdad has been subsequently allowed to sell limited amounts of oil abroad -- but only to pay for imports of food and medicine.
Iran has been the target of unilateral US sanctions barring any sizeable US investments in the Iranian oil industry. US sanctions against Libya were imposed in the aftermath of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, which left 270 people dead.
The report warns the anticipated emergence of China as a major oil importer in the next two decades could pose problems for the United States.
"The rising dependence of China on Persian Gulf oil could well alter political relationships within and outside the region," the researchers said.
"For example, China might seek to build military ties with energy exporters in the Persian Gulf in ways that would be of concern to the United States and its allies," they added.
The report warns that 20 years from now European nations could develop a "worrisome dependency" on Russian gas exports. It said the United States should not "obstruct" efforts to build multiple pipelines leading from the Caspian Sea region.
Following its sanctions policy, Washington has been trying to block attempts to build such a pipeline through Iranian territory.
It also has been cool to the idea of laying pipelines through Russia, advocating instead a Turkish route. The CSIS panel that compiled the report was co-chaired by Senators Frank Murkowski and Joseph Lieberman and Representatives Ellen Tauscher and Benjamin Gilman. —AFP.
By Maxim Kniazkov
©--Agence France Presse 2001.
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
