365 Days of Climate Awareness 299 – The Caspian Sea and the Petroleum Industry

The Caspian Sea is a large inland body of brackish water in western Asia, described alternately as an inland sea or as the world’s largest lake. It is bordered by Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to the east, Iran to the south, and Russia and Azerbaijan to the west. It was part of the ancient, warm Tethys Ocean whose seafloor was buried and gave rise to the oil and gas deposits of the Middle East: it is one of the northern reaches of these gigantic petroleum reserves.

Political map of the Caspian region.

Offshore exploration began in the Caspian during the 40’s, with the first platform being erected at the Oil Rocks site in 1949. From that point on only the Soviet Union pursued offshore activities, leaving most of the region untouched. Only after its collapse did the newly freed countries (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan) begin pursuing their own offshore interests, frequently by inviting in foreign companies (for their technical expertise). Currently, BP (in Azerbaijan) and Chevron (in Kazakhstan) are working in conjunction with state-owned companies.

Physical map of the Caspian region.

The Caspian Sea is not covered by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), since it is not directly connected to the ocean and no area is sufficiently far from shore to qualify as High Seas. Talks began in 1996 on this topic and concluded on August 12, 2018 resolved many of these disputes, most specifically exploration and production rights from the sea floor. The EIA estimates that 48 billion barrels of oil (at 95 million barrels per day global consumption, enough for 505 days worldwide—assuming 100% extraction. Reality is closer to 50% extraction) and 292 trillion cubic feet of gas (enough for 780 days at current usage). The Caspian reserves are therefore of major global economic significance.

Ancient Paratethys, ca. 30 MYA, with parts of the modern coastline superimposed (the Caspian is outlined in the upper right).

Present-day oil basins of the Caspian (note that the Middle Caspian basin extends west to southeastern Ukraine).

Production has increased, at times rapidly throughout the last quarter-century, especially in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Russia and its former vassal states tend to pay little attention to climate issues, being more focused on economic, social, political and military concerns. Russia’s attack on Ukraine is a very real and bloody illustration that these cannot be ignored. Whether the political control is exerted militarily, as in authoritarian states, or economically, as in capitalistic states, it is a very live opponent to climate progress, more so in countries where the people are informed poorly or not at all. The entire Caspian region is an unfortunate example of this.

Caspian and Black Sea oil and gas production since 1994.

Tomorrow: the Caspian and climate change.

Be brave, and be well.

365 Days of Climate Awareness 298 – Azerbaijan and the Oil Industry

Azerbaijan now produces slightly less than 900,000 barrels of oil per day, ranking it 24^th in the world . However, like Britain, Azerbaijan’s, and more specifically, its capital city Baku’s current importance to the oil industry lies more in its prominence as a center for the regional Caspian Sea oil industry. Daily production from the Caspian is 2.6 million barrels, which would place it tenth, behind Brazil and ahead of Kuwait, if it were a single country. So Baku might be better known for its place in the history of the oil industry, but it remains important today.

Map of the Caspian Sea.

Petroleum has been known to humans for thousands of years, first in the form of natural oil and gas seeps. The oil was sometimes harvested for fuel and other applications. At least one of these seeps occurred near Baku, and Marco Polo described it. By the late 1500’s manual wells were being dug for it, and had become common by the next century. In the mid-1700’s that Imperial Russia began drilling for oil in modern-day western Siberia. They brought their operations down to modern-day Romania and Azerbaijan, both of which they controlled, in the 1800’s. The first drilled oil well in Azerbaijan was sunk in 1846, to a depth of 21 m.

Azerbaijan historical oil production.

Baku ca. 1909, "where it rain[ed] oil"--literally.

Baku became the region’s oil capital under Imperial Russia, and has remained important for the industry to this day. Under Russian control, Azerbaijan and Romania were two of the world’s early centers for production and refining. Production was centered intensely around Baku, not unlike in the US were multiple wells were sunk very close to each other in an almost desperate rush to extract the oil. The principles of reservoir management were as yet undiscovered, and the Russians faced the same difficulties of well control which their American counterparts did, with frequent blowouts and gushers. At this time Azerbaijan produced more oil than the US did.

Homespun plot of  the Oil Rocks southeast of Baku and the Absheron Peninsula.

The region’s importance remained high throughout the 20^th century. During World War II, the Germans sought to maintain control of the oil fields of Romania and the refineries of Ploiesti, and were intent on capturing Baku (as well as the rich fields of thee Mideast). Foreign companies had entered the scene in Russia (which included Azerbaijan), but all assets were nationalized after the Russian Revolution. But a new dimension was added to the region’s oil production in the 1930’s, when drilling began on long-known oil-bearing structures on the floor of the Caspian Sea—and so the offshore oil industry was born in Asia.

Nautical chart showing the Oil Rocks.

This led to the gigantic offshore installation known as “Neft Dashlari”, the Oil Rocks. After surveys in the 1940’s revealed large oil deposits in the shallow center of the sea 55 km/34 mi from shore, the first platform—and first in the world--was built in 1949. In 1952 a trestle bridge was built, and a community started to support the increasingly large drilling activity. In the late 50’s large-scale construction began, using the hulls of sunk ships as foundations. Through the 60’s as many as 2,000 people lived there, with a school and a cinema. The installation is still in use, now built on piles and imported fill.

Azerbaijani exports.

Modern, independent Azerbaijan’s economy depends fully on the oil industry, which comprises nearly 87% of its exports. The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) is run very opaquely. Azerbaijan’s commitment to democracy is questionable at best, so transparency is close to nonexistent in the company’s investment, assets, production and profits. The country’s undiversified economy is subject to the fluctuations of the global petroleum market. Attempts at economic reform since the 2000’s have mitigated but not solved this basic problem, faced by those countries which gain an energy windfall and fail to invest it in their citizens.

Tomorrow: the Caspian Sea and the oil industry.

Be brave, and be well.

365 Days of Climate Awareness 297 – Introduction to Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is a small country just south, on the Asian side, of the Caucasus Mountain range border with Europe. It covers 86,600 sq km/33,400 sq mi, about the size of Minnesota, and has a population of 10.1 million, a little more than Michigan. It is bordered to the northwest by Georgia, to the west by Armenia, and to the south by Iran. To its east is the Caspian Sea. Together Azerbaijan and Georgia, its neighbor to the west, span the land bridge between the Caspian and Black Seas. Azerbaijan, in particular its capital city Baku, was one of the earliest centers of the oil industry on earth. Like Houston and Aberdeen, Baku is a major hub for offshore oil production.

Political map of the Caucasus region.

There are limited traces of Neolithic settlement, but the first major society attested in the archeological record is that of the Medes coming north from Iran and forming their empire in the 9^th c. BCE. It passed into the control of the Achaemenids (first Persian Empire) around 550 BCE. The region passed into the control of the Sassanians (also from Iran), moving from the Zoroastrian religion to Christianity. Over the next thousand-plus years this region south of the Caucasus was mostly ruled from Iran until the 19^th century, when the Russians wrested it away and kept control until the 1990’s and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Physical map of the Caucasus.

Following a murderous Soviet crackdown on Azerbaijani revolutionaries in January 1990 known as Black January, the nation, for the first time, declared its independence as the Azerbaijani Republic. But the young democracy was ended in 1993 by a military coup. Since then, presidents have run governments known mostly for fraudulent elections and graft. Azerbaijan has been intermittently at war with its neighbor Armenia for close to 30 years, though there is some hope that the current president, Ilham Alieyv, and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan might be able to broker a more lasting peace.

Köppen-Geiger climate zones, 1980-2016.

Azerbaijan is dominated in its north by the Greater and to the west and south by the Lesser Caucasus, together covering about 40% of its territory, with intervening plains. Its climate ranges from temperate in the southeast along the Caspian shore to cold steppe and alpine climates farther north. Perhaps its most famous native species is the Karabakh horse, one of the oldest breeds, known for its good temper, intelligence, and speed.

The oil industry accounts for nearly 90% of the nation’s economy, and is the subject of tomorrow’s post.

The Karabakh horse.

The Azerbaijani Caucasus.

Tomorrow: Azerbaijan and the oil industry.

Be brave, and be well.

365 Days of Climate Awareness 296 – Siberia and Methane

The extreme north of Siberia, across virtually its entire east-west extent, is tundra. Further, during the last glacial age, much of the current Arctic Ocean was land (if much of that was under glacial ice). The tundra and large portions of the Arctic Ocean are underlain by permafrost, which produces the massive swamps in the larch-dominated western taiga—water has nowhere to drain with the ice beneath it, the same as for Canada’s muskeg—but this is changing.

Arctic tundra.

Methane, CH₄, a greenhouse gas 23 times as insulative as carbon dioxide, though shorter-lived in the atmosphere, is common in swamps where dead organic materials pile up in anoxic environments. Methane would oxidize (by burning if there’s enough present) or escape into the atmosphere if it were free to do so. But when the methane is either trapped in ice, or frozen solid itself as a hydrate—a mixture with water molecules--on the sea floor, it remains immobile, but with the potential to enter the atmosphere, with possibly destructive effects. (And in addition, carbon dioxide is also stored within tundra sediment, not just methane.)

Global seafloor where methane hydrates are found (the absence around Antarctica and northern Siberia is due more to lack of measurment, due to the presence of ice).

The concept behind the widespread angst, in scientific circles and increasingly in the public’s awareness too, is that of the runaway feedback, where an effect of a process can amplify its own cause, and so lead to a situation out of control and worsening rapidly. Methane, being such a powerful greenhouse gas, could potentially add enough warmth to the atmosphere, ocean and ground to encourage the escape of still more methane and carbon dioxide, and so on.  The potential escape of large amounts of methane from frozen tundra and seafloor methane deposits is a real likelihood which scientists struggle to assign probability to.

Swamp gas (mostly methane).

Seafloor methane hydrates are estimated to total 1000-5000 GT, 100-500 times current annual carbon emissions. Total global carbon—both CO₂ and CH₄—stored in the top 3 m of arctic sediment is estimated at 1,400-1,600 PG (= 1,400-1,600 billion metric tons), or 40 times the world’s annual carbon emissions. Arctic and seafloor sediments represent significant and possibly dangerous reservoirs of greenhouse gases.

Methane hydrate (left: picture; right: diagram)

In recent years, spontaneous emissions from land and marine sources have been happening throughout the Siberian Arctic. Ocean measurements north of eastern Siberia have shown elevated amounts of methane, likely having escaped from warming hydrate deposits. On land, permafrost covers 65% of Russian territory. Craters have begun appearing at various locations, largely circular, straight-walled, and showing clear signs of a blast, not an impact. It is theorized these craters are being caused by methane deposits sublimating instantly.

Siberian (theorized) methane crater.

Tomorrow: introduction to Mongolia.

Be brave, and be well.

365 Days of Climate Awareness 295 – Deforestation in the Russian Taiga

Siberia is a prime commercial target for Russia and other countries, due to its huge mineral reserves (including oil) and for the forests, whose eastern hardwoods provide construction material and whose softwoods provide pulp for paper manufacturing. Beyond these direct threats are the environmental threats posed by global warming. It is estimated that Russia’s current 3.9 million sq km/1.5 million sq mi of boreal forest, known as taiga, is only 75% of the original extent, due to 20^th and early 21^st century deforestation.

Siberian ecoregions: (1) West Siberian Taiga (2) East Siberian Taiga (3) Cherskii-Kolyma Mountain Tundra (4) Trans-Baikal Bald Mountain Tundra (5) Cherskii-Kolyma Mountain Tundra (6) Northeast Siberian Taiga

The deciduous and coniferous trees of Siberia’s massive eastern forests are both desirable commodities, one for the construction market and the other for paper. Businesses from neighboring China and elsewhere have increasingly sought wood from this region in the past two decades. The kleptocratic nature of Russia’s government has led to such laws as there are being roundly ignored. Based on the extent of clear cuts (which are restored slowly, if at all) throughout these forests, it’s been estimated that logging over the past decade-plus has occurred at twice the legal rate. (Among other companies, Ikea has been implicated in illegal Siberian logging.) In 2014 deforestation due to logging reached 12 million hectares/30 million acres. At that rate, the entire Siberian taiga will be eliminated in just over 30 years (as an illustration only—reality never plays out that simply).

A clear cut in eastern Siberia.

Mining and oil exploration are further direct threats, due to forest clearance for installations, roads and pipelines, as well as local environmental poisoning from the mining and pumping activities. Oil spills are another danger to forests and plains alike. In 2009 more than 2 million gallons of oil were spilled from US pipelines alone. No comparable data is available from Russia. We will never know the full extent of damage done by spilled oil from their facilities and pipelines.

There have been massive forest fires throughout the region in recent years.

Environmental threats are not limited to the Russian taiga. The cold regions of the north have warmed disproportionately quickly relative to the rest of the world, with more heating in winter than in summer. This is altering the life cycle of plants, animals and fungi—the entire biome—and leading gradually to total ecosystem change. Shorter-term effects include a higher tendency for forest fires as temperatures rise and the soil dries out. Pests, including insects and disease, are moving north and attacking trees with little to no resistance. What now looks wild and pristine in photos, in thirty years could be anything but.

Siberian diamond mine.

May 29, 2020: 20,000 tons of oil spill into the Ambarnaya River.

Tomorrow: methane emissions from the Siberian tundra.

Be brave, and be well.

365 Days of Climate Awareness 294 – Introduction to Siberia

Siberia is the gigantic continental area of northern Asia reaching from the Ural Mountains to the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. It comprises about ¾ of Russia, itself accounting for about 6% of the world’s surface area (13.1 million sq km/5.1 million sq mi). Nearly a third of it is the northern evergreen forest, the taiga (3.9 million sq km/1.5 million sq mi). The region is populated very sparsely, with only about 37 million people, due mostly to the extreme climate and remoteness. Very little infrastructure exists there—the Trans-Siberian Railway is the most famous example—and most settlements are clustered in its southern half.

Physical map of Siberia.

Siberian oil provinces.

Nomads roamed the southern plains for more than a thousand years, but in the 1500’s Russia began extending its territory eastward, and reached the Pacific by the late 1600’s. Russia has never relinquished control since then, whether as the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, or the Russian Federal Republic. Siberia has tremendous natural resources, including the metals and other minerals of Siberia’s central province. The huge oil deposits in both central and western Siberia have led to Russia’s huge petroleum industry. The settlements are in remote locations, frequently in arctic environments, and are connected via pipeline to distribution networks both west and east.

Western Taiga ecozone.

Eastern Taiga ecozone.

Siberia falls into three general zones: west, central and east. The western zone is lower in elevation, between the Ural Moutnains, the ancient suture between Baltica and (proto-)Siberia. It consists mostly of sedimentary deposits eroded from the mountains and the craton to the east. The Siberian craton, the central province, is one of the world’s most ancient continental cores, is rich in minerals, and includes the giant basalt deposits laid down at the end of the Permian. The eastern zone, known also as the Lena-Tunguska petroleum province, bounded by mountains to east and south, is another sedimentary rock zone. To the south are the many folds of mountains north of the Tibetan Plateau, all resulting from the continuing collision of India with Asia.

Larch forest of the western taiga.

Frozen waterfall and basalt cliffs of central Siberia.

Climatically Siberia ranges from dry, cold steppe in the south to the temperate plains north of that, through the forested taiga, to the tundra of the far north. The taiga itself is divided into eastern and western halves. Only larches can survive the frigid, plains of the west, where snowfall is not heavy but permafrost is very deep. Huge bogs swamps, the largest on earth, cover about 40% of that region. Climatically the region is cool in summer, dry and frigid in winter—its Köppen classification is “subarctic”. In the east the forest is a mixture of deciduous (leafy) and coniferous (evergreen). Eastern Siberia has an even more extreme continental climate, ranging from 20ºC/68ºF in summer to -30ºC/-22ºF in winter. It is the coldest region on earth behind Antarctica and Greenland.

Siberian oilfield operations.

Lake Kutsherla, Altai Mountains.

The huge forest which dominates central and western Siberia is one of the world’s great carbon sinks, though this is coming under increasing threat.

Tomorrow: threats to the Siberian taiga.

Be brave, and be well.

365 Days of Climate Awareness 293 – Introduction to Russia

The current government of Russia has brought destruction, horror and genocide to its neighbor Ukraine in an unprovoked war which has lasted for more than three months and shows no sign of ending. But this profile is not concerned with the despotic government of the present day. It’s concerned with Russia the natural entity and the society, both of which are far larger and more durable than any government, however terrible. And Russia is a grand country.

Map of Russia with its administratrive divisions.

Russia is the world’s largest country in area, covering 17,125,191 sq km/6,612,073 sq mi, 1/8 of the world’s land mass (nearly twice as big as the United States). It spans two continents (Europe and Asia—and as noted before, Russia’s eastern tip sits on the North American plate) and eleven time zones. Roughly 2/3 of Russia is in Asia and is known as Siberia. Its capital is Moscow and its population is slightly over 143 million.

Physical map of Russia.

Traces of human habitation, Homo erectus, date back 2 million years to the Paleolithic in the Altai Mountains, and traces of the last known Neanderthals from 45,000 years ago have been found in western Siberia. In historical times, Russia was settled from both north and south, with Greeks settling the coasts of the Black Sea and Kievan Rus moving northeastward, and Varangians—Vikings—coming down the rivers from the north. The Grand Duchy of Moscow emerged in the 1300’s as a regional power, and gradually gained influence through a series of wars with enemies to both east and west. In the 1700’s, after nearly a century of extreme turbulence, the tsarist state was established, which held until the early 20^th century. Since the revolution of 1917 Russia has had a mostly authoritarian government, primarily under the guise of communism, up to the present day.

Köppen-Geiger climate zones,1980-2016.

Russia is a petrostate, with an authoritarian government which controls (through indebted proxies—the “oligarchs” as generally known) the means of production of oil and gas, and has used that freely as a geopolitical tool. It currently ranks third globally in oil production, behind the United States and Saudi Arabia. Oil and gas exports have accounted for 60% of Russia’s total exports and 45% of its governmental revenue. Despite this heavy dependence on petroleum, Russia, having the world’s 11^th-largest economy (prior to 2022 sanctions) has a large service sector which accounts for 62% of its GDP, nearly double that of industry (32%) which includes oil production.

St. Petersburg.

For having the world’s fourth-largest coastline, Russia is virtually landlocked, since much of that coastline is in the Arctic and iced over for much of the year, or else is geographically remote from any population. Its territory extends from 41º to 82º N latitude. Its climates range from temperate to fully Arctic and include the high arid plains of the east, the giant taiga (pine forest) of the north and alpine climates of the south and east.  Russia is home to the world’s deepest lake—Baikal, at 1,642 m/5,387 ft (the second deepest is Lake Tanganyika in Africa, at 1,470 m/4822 ft). Its tallest mountain is Mount Ebrus in the western Caucasus, at 5,642 m/18,510 ft.

The Altai Mountains of southern Russia.

Tomorrow: introduction to Siberia.

Be brave, and be well.