Darum geht es wirklich in dem Krieg: Um die Kontrolle über die Pipelines und damit darüber, wer das Öl und wer das Geld dafür bekommt:
Hier die einfache Rechnung zum Wert des Öls, das in einem einzigen Jahr durch die Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan-Pipeline (BTC pipeline) fließt, die eine Kapazität von rund 1 Millionen Barrel Öl je Tag besitzt:
1 Barrel Brent Öl kostet so viele $:
1 € kostet so viele $:
(1 Mio. Barrel/Tag) x (114 $/Barrel) / (1,5 $/€) = 76'000'000 €/Tag = 76 Mio. €/Tag = 27'740'000'000 €/ Jahr = 27,74 Milliarden € im Jahr
Der genaue Wert des Öls, das über diese Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan-Pipeline fließt, schwankt entsprechend den Kursen von $/Barrel und $/€ - hier wurden jüngste Annäherungen dafür verwendet sowie die Annahme, dass 365 Tage im Jahr die Kapazität voll ausgenützt wird.
27,74 Milliarden € im Jahr sind ein Kriegsgrund!
Georgia has no significant oil or gas reserves of its own but it is a key transit point for oil from the Caspian and central Asia destined for Europe and the US.
Crucially, it is the only practical route from this increasingly important producer region that avoids both Russia and Iran.
The 1,770km (1,100 miles)
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which entered service only last year, pumps
up to 1 million barrels of oil per day from Baku in Azerbaijan to Yumurtalik, Turkey, where it is loaded on to supertankers for delivery to Europe and the US. Around 249km of the route passes through Georgia, with parts running only 55km from South Ossetia.
Output from the
pipeline, which is 30 per cent owned by BP and carries more than 1 per cent of the world's supply, is likely to be on hold for several weeks while the fire is extinguished and the damage repaired.
But the threat of another attack by separatists in Georgia itself is very real.
Only a few days before the Turkish explosion, Georgian separatists threatened to sabotage the pipeline if hostilities continued.
The latest eruption of violence could easily spur fresh attacks.
The BTC pipeline, which is buried throughout most of its length to make sabotage more difficult, was a politically highly charged project. It
was firmly opposed by Russia, which views the Caucasus as its own sphere of influence and wants central Asian oil to be exported via its own territory.
Russia also backs the South Ossetian and Abkhazian separatists in Georgia and relations between Moscow and Tbilisi have curdled into outright hostility in recent months.
The BTC pipeline, which
cost $3 billion to build, is a key plank of US foreign policy because it reduces Western reliance on oil from both the Middle East and Russia.