OIL

Independent: BP pipeline will displace thousands, says Amnesty
£2.9bn oil and gas pipeline project from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean, due to be constructed by a BP-led consortium, will infringe the human rights of thousands of people and cause environmental damage, according to an Amnesty International report published today.

Amnesty is urging the British Government to reject BP's application for taxpayers' money, in the form of export credit guarantees, for the 1,100 miles of pipeline.
The pipeline, from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, through Georgia, to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, is one of the most ambitious projects of its kind and has been seen as a crucial gambit in a 21st-century equivalent of the Great Game. The scheme will allow vast supplies of oil and gas to flow in separate pipes from former Soviet central Asia to the Mediterranean without having to pass through Russian or Iranian territory.