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News Analysis from the Keweenaw Peninsula Posted March 16, 2002 © 2002 Katie Alvord for Keweenaw Now

Afghanistan: War for oil? Local voices weigh in

This month, as Congress considers a sweeping energy policy bill and the Bush administration continues to push for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the debate over United States energy security has moved into the spotlight.

Underlying the debate, some recent news articles have raised the issue of Bush administration assistance to the oil industry, while others have suggested links between the Taliban and U.S. efforts to access oil and gas supplies. Such reports have raised the question: Just what role has oil played in the Afghan war?

The range of answers in the media appears wide, with some pundits labeling the Afghan conflict another "war for oil" and others completely dismissing that idea. Many seem to fall somewhere in between, expressing skepticism that energy issues have caused this war but pointing out that oil has played a major role in U.S. foreign policy in Central Asia. They suggest also that energy issues figured prominently in U.S. - Taliban relations, at least until terrorism became an all-consuming issue.

Michigan Technological University's Wayne Pennington, a professor of geophysical engineering, is one who believes that access to oil played "no role whatsoever" in the recent Afghan conflict. Pennington's work in geophysics has focused particularly on its use within the oil and gas industry, and he has lived in Pakistan as well as visiting Afghanistan often.

"Afghanistan is not an important player, and is likely never to be, for the global oil market," says Pennington.

Another MTU faculty member, associate professor Barry Solomon, characterizes oil's role in the current war as a secondary one. Solomon, a former official of both the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, now teaches courses on energy policy issues for MTU's Social Sciences Department.

Solomon notes that while access to oil is "not likely a primary motivation" of the Afghan war, "it could be construed as an ancillary benefit." He points out that the recent war and rebuilding efforts "undoubtedly make it more likely that Afghanistan will cooperate to come up with favorable terms for oil or gas pipelines that might be built through the country."

Pipelines key piece in energy puzzle

As the U.S. Energy Information Administration writes, "Afghanistan's significance from an energy standpoint stems from its geographical position as a potential transit route for oil and natural gas exports from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea. This potential includes the possible construction of oil and natural gas export pipelines through Afghanistan, which was under serious consideration in the mid-1990s." (See note #1, below.)

The potential of building pipelines through Afghanistan gained attention shortly after oil- and gas-rich areas of the former Soviet Union near the Caspian Sea became independent in the early 1990s. In need of cash for economic development, the new Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in particular have sought new routes to transport their oil to world markets. Getting these resources out also represented a money-making opportunity for oil companies and an opportunity for consumers wanting the oil and gas.

Various players felt the route south through Afghanistan was not the best -- as MTU's Wayne Pennington points out, "Access to oil supplies in the area is much easier through other routes" -- and the countries and companies involved in the region did discuss other possibilities.

Some advocated a pipeline from the Caspian Sea west, through Azerbaijan and across Turkey (A consortium of oil interests finalized an agreement to build that pipeline earlier this year). Also, the shortest, most direct route for transporting energy resources from the Caspian to ocean ports is south through Iran.  However, U.S. sanctions against that country have made this option difficult if not impossible to pursue. (See note #2, below.)

In the mid-1990s, then, the pipeline route south from the Caspian region through Afghanistan emerged as a serious alternative.

At the time, according to energy expert Sheila Heslin of the Clinton administration's National Security Council, "U.S. policy was to promote the rapid development of Caspian energy ...We did so specifically to promote the independence of these oil-rich countries, to in essence break Russia's monopoly control over the transportation of oil from that region, and frankly, to promote Western energy security through diversification of supply." (See note #3, below.)

Heslin's statements appear in Pakistani reporter Ahmed Rashid's book, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, which describes the strategies and shifting alliances at play as corporations and governments attempted pipeline development through Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Strategies and shifting alliances

Unocal crafted two proposals. They set up the CentGas consortium to build an 890-mile natural gas pipeline from Dauletabad, Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan to Multan, Pakistan, maintaining a 70 percent share for themselves with the remainder divided between Saudi-based Delta Oil, Russia's Gazprom and state-owned Turkmenrosgaz.

They also formed the Central Asian Oil Pipeline Project to pursue construction of a 1,050 mile oil pipeline from Chardzou, Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan to an oil terminal on the Pakistani coast.  In the 1990s, the natural gas pipeline was the one more actively pursued.

Both projects, though, faced problems -- mainly the civil war that had raged since the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. Establishment of a stable government in Kabul thus became an important prerequisite for construction of pipelines and for access to Caspian oil and gas.

Unocal vice president Marty Miller addressed this need for stability as he discussed the proposed CentGas pipeline at a press conference in June 1997.

"It's uncertain when this project will start," Miller said to the press. "It depends on peace in Afghanistan and a government we can work with." (Rashid 172) 

Unocal president John Imle echoed this when he later told reporter Ahmed Rashid, "We made it clear to all parties from the beginning ... that the Afghan factions would have to get together and develop a functioning government that was recognized by lending institutions before the project could succeed." (Rashid 167)

Not only Unocal recognized they would need stability in Afghanistan to pursue resource development.  Governments in the region saw this, too.

As Lakhdar Brahmi, UN mediator for Afghanistan, explained to reporter Rashid, "The CARs [Central Asian Republics] have two problems with Afghanistan.  One is fear and the other is opportunity. Fear is the realization by these new and still fragile countries that the Afghan conflict cannot be contained forever within its borders . . . . The opportunity is that as landlocked countries who want to break their dependence on Russia, they are looking south [through Afghanistan] for oil and gas pipelines and communication routes.  They want a government in Kabul which is responsible and is a good neighbor." (Rashid 155)

Once the Taliban gained ground against other Afghan factions, capturing Kandahar in 1994 and Kabul in 1996, it was thought they might be that "good neighbor," capable of bringing the stability that neighboring countries and oil companies had sought.

Companies court Taliban

The courting of the Taliban pitted these two oil companies against each other and became the basis of strategic maneuvering by national governments to assert control over the region's oil and gas resources. As Yasuki Akashi, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, told Rashid in 1997: "The outside interference in Afghanistan is now all related to the battle for oil and gas pipelines. The fear is that these companies and regional powers are just renting the Taliban for their own purposes." (Rashid 169)

According to Rashid, Unocal's courting of the Taliban included trips for Taliban officials to the U.S.; provision of some small gifts to the Taliban such as a fax machine and a generator; and a $900,000 donation to the Nebraska-based Centre of Afghanistan Studies. Rashid states that the Centre used this donation to establish a school in Kandahar to train "teachers, electricians, carpenters, and pipe-fitters to help Unocal lay the pipeline." (Rashid 171)

Unocal's negotiations also included entering into agreements in which the Taliban would receive transit fees for gas pumped through the proposed CentGas pipeline.

Initially, the CentGas project was to begin construction in December, 1997. However, continued instability caused Unocal to delay that by a year. Then in 1998, several events occurred that further affected the project and caused both Unocal and the U.S. government to do an about-face in its approach to the Taliban.

In August 1998, factions trained by Osama bin Laden bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, straining U.S. relations with the Taliban and forcing Unocal to move staff out of Kandahar and suspend its work with CentGas.  Also during 1998, U.S. women's groups mounted pressure on Unocal to sever its ties with the Taliban on human rights grounds due to the status of Afghan women. Falling oil prices, too, affected the project. By December, 1998, Unocal issued a statement announcing it had dropped out of CentGas and abandoned the natural gas pipeline project altogether.

In 1999 and 2000, U.S. policy toward Afghanistan focused mainly on getting bin Laden. The Clinton administration's overt policies toward the Taliban were also affected by women's groups, since women figured so prominently in Clinton's base of support.

Go to Page 2: "Did Bush administration discuss pipelines with Taliban?"

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Editor's Notes: #1: See the Energy Information Administration's profile of Afghanistan. #2: See related maps for information on pipelines. Scroll down about half way and click to enlarge maps in right column. #3: Sheila Heslin in Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000) p. 174. Further references to this text will be indicated by Rashid and page numbers in parentheses within this article.