GEORGIAN VILLAGERS GREET PIPELINE WITH GUARDED HOPE
A EurasiaNet Photo Essay by Molly Corso: 9/13/02

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On September 18, says the Turkish Energy Ministry, workers will lay foundation for an oil pipeline in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The pipeline is supposed to snake from the mouth of the petro-rich Caspian Sea in Baku, through Georgia’s capital and mountainous villages, and onto the port of Ceyhan, Turkey. Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Zeki Cakan told the Anatolia news agency on September 9 that Turkish agencies would sign all relevant contracts by September 20. These events make the so-called BTC pipeline, which the United States has supported for years as a supply channel that bypasses Russia, seem more credible. But government strategists and executives at BP, the energy conglomerate with the biggest stake in the pipeline, face stiff challenges. Poor and underemployed villagers are seeking answers about how the pipeline will affect their ability to work, the price of their land, and their own energy supplies. Unpredictable aspects of these concerns, and BP’s track record, have made villagers unsure of what to expect. And while BP has seemed more forthcoming in the past few months, it is impossible to say how pipeline sponsors’ energy dreams will reconcile to the hard realities of village life.

Their questions have not found clear answers. In June, CEE BankWatch and five other nongovernmental organizations interviewed Georgians and reviewed project documents. In the subsequent report, they accused BP and other investors of not working hard enough to inform villagers about how the pipeline would affect their lives. Three months later, villagers who talked to EurasiaNet said the oil companies had been frank and attentive. They just hadn’t provided any conclusive information.

On a sunny day in September, Shota Shotashvili and Koba Amanatashvili, landowners along the pipeline path in the village of Sadgeri, seemed relatively calm but not complacent. "They [representatives from the oil companies] have come often and talked with us," said Shotashvili. "There was a meeting in July...they didn’t promise anything." So far, Shotashvili said, he feels satisfied with what oil companies have disclosed, but he could not predict events. Representatives have said their companies would buy land, he explained, but did not talk about how much they might pay. He did not seem inclined to drive a hard bargain. "What they offer we will take, of course," he said.

Like some oil analysts, villagers in Sadgeri reserve some doubts that the pipeline will ever take shape. "Everyone says that they don’t know what price they will give for the land, but they have been working on this for years. How can that be? How can we bargain if we don’t know the price?" According to reports on the agreement signed by the Georgian government, the government will help determine who owns relevant plots, but oil companies will directly buy land. It’s unclear how this process will work logistically and whether it will give municipalities and landowners the best possible deals. Like the landowners, officials seem to express either resignation or cautious optimism.

The Borjomi region’s vice minister, Gila Mikeladze, seemed philosophical about his lack of input to the land-purchase process. "No, we don’t want to be involved," he said. "Why would we?" It may be relevant that BP completed a gas pipeline from Baku to the Georgian port of Supsa in 2000. The company paid villagers for land used during the construction, including corn farms, although a Georgian entity delivered the money. The majority of involved parties feel that they collected too little, and opinions are mixed about how fair the process was. Dato Gochuadze, the mayor of Supsa during construction, said the process had been fair. "They found out how much the corn cost on the market and paid that amount," he said.

But some landowners complain that construction ruined the land. "What they gave, that was too little," said Sulico Jincharadze. "They deceived us." Jincharadze said her family received 200 lari, or a little over $100, for 1000 square meters of land, or 700 kilograms of corn. But she says the family did not understand that the construction would harm their crops and that members were working the field when they saw tractors cutting down their corn. "We were told that it shouldn’t matter to us since they were going to pay us." She said that they complained to the local administration several times and even started a case against the oil companies, but they were paid for their losses a year later. Gochuadze says villagers can plant corn above the pipeline but cannot build structures. The town remains poor, as these photos show, and residents have taken to the streets to demand better roads and electricity.

Despite a perception of broken promises in Supsa, the 1730-kilometer BTC project raises villagers’ hopes for construction jobs. The NGOs’ report chastises the Georgian government for promising more work than would materialize and blames the oil companies for letting inflated promises stand. Here, too, BP has taken some steps to clear the air. On September 6, BP outlined its hiring policy in the local paper, "Borjomi." The company refuted rumors that prospective employees would be expected to pay for positions and noted that people whose land sits along the construction pathway will get preferential treatment for available jobs. This may not discourage expectations. The Borjomi administration had uttered the number 2,000 when discussing the number of jobs available.

In Supsa, applicants outnumbered available jobs by around 300 to 1. Gia Lomadze has worked on the Baku-Supsa line for the past five years. "First I built the terminal and now I guard what I built," he said. Lomadze added that foreign workers collected several times more than the Georgians, but that people are still willing to work for the oil companies. "Everyone would like it if there were four or five or six pipelines here to work on."

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Posted September 13, 2002 © Eurasianet
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