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Tanker Traffic Through The
Bosphorus - A Disaster Waiting To Happen?
The Bosphorus 'issue' is a thorny
one. Conflicting interests are in-built. The waterway is surrounded
by Turkish territory, but it is the single passage to the
Mediterranean for the landlocked states of the Black Sea. Not least,
it forms a major maritime link for Russia. John Roberts reports from
Istanbul, on 'one of the world's most dangerous seaways'
Some time back, three men set their
signatures to a document that contained the following words: "The
Convention concluded at Montreux should be revised as failing to
meet present-day conditions." The three men signed themselves simply
as follows: J.V. Stalin, Harry S. Truman and C.R. Attlee. The
document they were signing was the Potsdam Declaration of Aug 2,
1945. The Convention was not amended.
That the leaders of the Soviet Union,
the US and Great Britain - then the three most powerful men in the
world and, arguably, the arbiters of its destiny - could not amend a
diplomatic convention signed less than a decade earlier testifies to
the complexity of the core problem that Montreux sought to address:
passage of shipping through what are now generally known as the
Turkish Straits
The root issue is that while the
Straits, comprising the Dardanelles at the southern end and the
Bosphorus at the northern, are completely surrounded by Turkish
territory - with the Bosphorus actually running through the middle
of the megalopolis that is present-day Istanbul - they nonetheless
link the otherwise landlocked states of the Black Sea with the
Mediterranean and, for one of the world's major countries, Russia,
constitute its main maritime link with the outside world.
Nilufer Oral, one of Turkey's foremost
legal scholars on the issue, recalls the interest of every leader in
Moscow from Peter the Great through to Stalin and Putin. "Today,"
she comments, "we keep going through the Montreux issues. Then it
was about warships, now it's about oil tankers."
Oil tankers do indeed dominate the
issue today. When Montreux was signed in 1936, a 10,000-tonne tanker
serving the Black Sea ports was big, and the shores of the Bosphorus
itself were green. Today Istanbul has grown from around half a
million inhabitants to some 15-mil citizens, its suburbs lining both
sides of the twisting waterway, and tankers that may be more than
250 meters long have to navigate tight bends, one of which is
located where the strait is less than 700 meters wide.
Turkish Rules Controversial
The Turkish maritime authorities,
bolstered by a new Vessel Tracking System (VTS) introduced on Dec
30, regulate passage through the Straits but, in accordance with the
Montreux Convention, have to maintain the waterway for all to use.
The dilemma confronting them is that Turkish rules and regulations
have proved controversial, both in theory and practice, and with
tanker traffic through the Straits proving one of the biggest
problems, this routinely puts Turkey at odds with both Russia and
Ukraine.
Ten years ago, a Turkish diplomat,
Oguz Celikkol, summed up Turkey's views as follows: "The narrow
Turkish Straits are first and foremost a sea corridor, but not a
passageway for oil and natural gas transportation. As long as
thousands of tons of such inflammable and explosive materials are
shipped in this heavy traffic, other vessels and human lives will
remain in constant danger and disastrous accidents will be
unavoidable. Therefore, the oil and natural gas from Central Asia
and Azerbaijan should reach the sea via projected pipelines."
This is an argument that Turkish
officials have persistently used to secure support for the $3.6-bil
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which will be capable of carrying as
much as 1-mil barrels a day of Caspian crude to markets, without
reliance on tanker traffic through the Bosphorus.
It is also Turkey's justification for
further proposed "Bosphorus bypass" projects, such as pipelines from
the Bulgarian port of Burgas to the Greek port of Alexandroupolis
or, with greater self-interest, from Kiyikoy on Turkey's own Black
Sea coast to Ibrikbana, a Turkish fishing hamlet on the Aegean.
"It's about the issue of who is going to have control of the oil
coming out of the Caspian - it's pipeline politics," says Oral.
'Most Dangerous' Seaway
But there are also genuine safety
concerns. Baris Tozar, who as director of the Turkish government's
coast security and ship salvage department is in effect the safety
chief for the Straits, in January described the Bosphorus as "one of
the most dangerous seaways in the world". What's more, he noted,
traffic volumes were constantly growing. In 2001, he said, some
6,516 commercial ships carrying 101-mil tons of cargo passed through
the Bosphorus; in 2003, the tally was 8,097 ships carrying 135-mil
tons.
Added to this increase in traffic is a
notable increase in delays. In January, a combination of bad weather
and careful traffic regulation meant that some tankers were waiting
as long as 18 days to pass through the Straits. At the end of
January the Straits were closed for 53 hours as a Force 10 Beaufort
Scale storm ripped across the waterways, bringing snow and fog and
stirring up the already treacherous currents. More storms brought
fresh closures in February.
Oral, who teaches law at Istanbul's
Bilgi University, says that the new $45-mil VTS scheme should in
time improve matters, since more efficient tracking of transit
vessels, and interactive communication with them, could eventually
enable the authorities to reduce the time gap between tankers
passing through the Straits. At present, in order to allow
sufficient lead times for each ship, Turkey effectively confines
passage of large tankers through the Dardanelles, which at 36 miles
is the longer of the twin straights, to six vessels a day. At any
given time, anything from 20 to 60 tankers can be lined up waiting
to transit the Straits.
The delays in tanker traffic have
prompted complaints at both ends of the energy chain. Russia has
protested that tankers carrying oil from Russia have been delayed
while the Ukraine, which both imports and exports crude, has made
similar criticisms. The Turkish press has also reported that
European refiners have faced problems stemming from the slow passage
of vessels through the Straits.
Tozar's response was that Turkey would
rather follow a "safety first" policy. European refineries, many of
which now rely on Russian crudes passing through the Straits from
Novorossiysk, should adjust their plants, she said, and rely
increasingly on Kirkuk blend oil from Iraq, which, when the line is
open, is piped directly to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
Tozar also said the amount of oil
going through the Bosphorus has gone up by almost a third in the
last five years and that this has contributed to delays. Most of
these tankers serve Russian ports. A local Istanbul shipping agency,
Dozgit, tracked 294 oil tankers passing northbound through the
straits between Oct 29, 2003 and Jan 19, 2004. These included 51
Suezmax (200,000dwt) vessels, of which 47 were bound for Russia's
main export terminals at Novorossiysk, three for the Georgian port
of Supsa and one for the Russian port of Tuapse.
Of the 243 smaller vessels, Dozgit
secured details of 150 and, of these, 92 were bound for
Novorossiysk, 16 each for the Ukrainian ports of Theodosia and
Odessa, five for Tuapse, five for the Georgian port of Batumi, and
three for Supsa. Others were heading for smaller Russian and
Ukrainian ports.
Oral's view is that in recent years
there has been "a tremendous increase" in large tankers. "There are
more tankers and they are larger." She adds: "There has to be some
order in how they pass. I'm not sure it's the regulations that cause
delays. I hear conflicting information."
But Turkey's regulations, established
in 1994 to ensure increased safety in the Straits and tightened in
1998, do contribute to delays. The 1994 regulations introduced a
scheme by means of which the Turkish authorities could suspend one-
or two-way traffic in certain conditions. Current regulations are
also aimed at ensuring that all ships of more than 200 meters in
length confine their passage to daylight. The 1994 guidelines sought
to restrict daylight passage to vessels over 250 meters
This change, said one Turkish shipping
source, "has at least tripled the waiting list." The new VTS, says
Captain Kjell Landin, who tracks Bosphorus shipping issues for
ChevronTexaco, "is not a revolutionary changeover, but it is a new
management structure. The VTS gives advice, information. It cannot
give instructions."
Daylight Passage Delays
For Landin, the main cause of delays
is not the new VTS system or the application of tougher regulations,
but traffic volumes and the wholly natural problem of shorter
daylight hours and poorer weather conditions in winter combining to
limit the passage of large vessels. "Every winter this comes up.
There are shorter daylight hours, so if you have a daylight
restriction on ships..." he says, leaving his thought hanging in the
air.
What the Turkish authorities are
doing, says Landin, with strong US government support (including
financial and technological support for the VTS), makes sense.
"There is a real drive to do the right thing. They want to organize
everything from escort tugs, to search-and-rescue." Not least,
Landin notes, are the Turkish moves to try to keep small ships away
from the big ones.
With 50,000 vessels a year (many of
them Turkish coastal or fishing boats) passing through the Straits,
this is a major problem. A myriad small craft criss-cross the
Straits every day, skimming around the freighters and tankers
navigating the Dardanelles and Bosphorus. Istanbul alone includes an
estimated 1.5-mil people who commute by ferry from one side of the
city to the other, using, according to one 1996 estimate, around
1,300 boats and ferries.
Then there's the quality of the
shipping using the Straits. The major oil companies bringing oil
from the CPC pipeline at Novorossiysk or Azeri crude pumped by BP
and its partners to the Georgian port of Supsa may be using modern
tankers, but not all the Black Sea fleet is up-to-date.
"The quality of Black Sea Shipping,
it's a big problem," says Oral, adding that the same holds true for
Turkey's own merchant fleet. The fear is always that the Straits,
and in particular the Bosphorus, will witness a major tanker
disaster in a waterway that is routinely assumed to carry four or
five times the load of the Panama or Suez canals.
In 1979, as every Istanbuli seems to
know, the Romanian Tanker Independenta caught fire after colliding
with the Greek tanker Evriali just off Haydarpasa in the Sea of
Marmara, at the southern entrance to the Bosphorus.
"People who lived in Istanbul at the
time said it rocked Istanbul like an earthquake. A huge fully-laden
tanker collided with a dry cargo ship at night," says Oral. "There
was a huge explosion. The sky went crimson red. The city shook.
Windows broke. There was a large fire and 43 crew burned to death.
The wreck burned for weeks."
Oral compares the Independenta fire to
the Exxon Valdez, which ran aground off Alaska in March 1989. "No
one knows [about] the Independenta like they know the Exxon Valdez,"
says Oral. "Yet the Exxon Valdez pales by comparison. The
Independenta was the oil industry's apocalyptic scenario."
Unpublicized Tragedy
The Romanian vessel, she notes, spewed
some 94,000 tonnes of burning oil into the Sea of Marmara at the
southern end of the Bosphorus. In comparison, the Exxon Valdez
leaked 25,000 tonnes into Prince William Sound, Alaska. Five years
later, a Greek Cypriot tanker, the Nassia, collided with another
vessel in the Straits, killing 30 seamen and spilling 20,000 tonnes
of oil.
And, every day, many of the tankers
and freighters that are not involved in collisions contribute to
further pollution in the already congested Straits. Turkish sources
note that major spills, together with the washing out of
contaminated ballast water, have caused the collapse of the local
fishing industry in the Straits. Increased regulation of traffic,
including suspension of traffic at times, says Oral, have helped a
lot in reducing incidents. But they haven't eliminated them.
This winter's storms - which include
the worst weather the Straits have seen for 15 years, have already
claimed several ships. On Nov 10, the Georgian-flagged Svyatoy
Panteleymon broke in two and leaked some of its 220 tons of diesel
and 260 tons of fuel oil into the Straits. The next day a
Cambodian-flagged cargo ship was reported to have sunk just after
entering the Black Sea from the Bosphorus. On Feb 13, another
Cambodian-flagged vessel, a coal carrier called the Hera, capsized
while trying to seek refuge in the Bosphorus from fierce gales on
Feb 13, with the apparent loss of all its crew: 17 Bulgarians and
three Ukrainians.
"The Black Sea fleet needs to be
improved," says Oral. "That includes Turkey, Russia and Ukraine."
Russia, she argues, "is making a nice income from its oil, so it has
a strong interest in seeing its oil is transported in
state-of-the-art tankers to ensure - with Turkey - that its cargoes
are safe."
Free Transit, Say Russians
However, the Russian position remains
the same as in 1994, when the new Turkish regulations were
introduced: that Turkey has no legal right to introduce such
regulations, which, Russia believes, run counter to commitment of
the Montreux convention to promote free transit through the Straits.
Turkish calls to reduce traffic in the
Straits would appear to fall on deaf ears. Tozar, the head of
Turkey's coastal safety organization, said on Nov 15 that Russia and
other oil exporters using the Turkish Straits should find
alternative routes for their crude in order to reduce congestion.
The Straits, he said, had limited physical capacity of the Straits.
However, Tozar declared in January, Russia was still putting
pressure on Turkey to increase the amount of tanker traffic through
the Straits.
The Montreux Convention guarantees the
free passage of vessels through the Straits. Turkey argues, however,
that it has an obligation to manage the Straits in much the same way
that traffic police manage vehicle traffic on the highway. The
regulations introduced by Turkey in July 1994, which were
subsequently endorsed by the UN's International Maritime
Organization, thus limit the concept of absolute freedom of
navigation by imposing a more orderly structure on the passage of
vessels through the Straits.
In sum, Turkey places safety - and
environmental - considerations ahead of adherence to the absolute
freedom of navigation through the Straits. Russia remains more
concerned with maintaining what it considers to be absolute freedoms
that it considers Turkish is putting at risk by forcing new
regulations on ships transiting the Straits. (Were their
geographical locations reversed, the arguments might be different.)
While Turkey's regulations are indeed
controversial, Turkey has not, however, sought to change two of the
basic tenets of the convention. One is that ships do not have to pay
to transit the Straits (although a small charge for a health
inspection can be levied); the other is that foreign ships do not
need to take on a pilot.
No Pilots, No Tolls
Thus while the big international
shipping lines do take on pilots for both the Dardanelles and the
Bosphorus, Russian ships, by and large, do not. As for tolls, they
have at least been considered by the Turkish authorities. In 2001,
the then Foreign Minister Ismail Cem floated the idea of charging
vessels for use of the Straits, but did not pursue the matter when
it came under fire from countries using the Straits.
To Oral, the issues remain clear-cut.
"Russia and Ukraine know very well how dangerous the Straits are.
Instead of looking at it purely at a legal level, they should look
at it in the spirit of regional cooperation. If anything happens in
the Straits, they will be the first to suffer," she says.
Instead of criticizing Turkish moves,
Dr Oral believes Russia and Ukraine would do well to cooperate with
the Turkish authorities. "There are more constructive ways to
approach the matter," she says. These include "looking at their own
ships, taking more pilots and supporting BTC or developing new
pipelines."
There are not enough pipelines to take
all the oil that the Caspian is expected to produce, she says. Over
the next 10 years or so, Caspian exports are expected to rise from
less than 1-mil barrels a day (b/d) at present to around 2.5-3.0-mil
b/d, with most of the crude heading west.
The new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan line will
carry much of that crude but, even so, tanker traffic through the
Straits is expected to grow. Indeed, after noting a 17.5% increase
in crude oil and oil products transiting the Straits to around
117-mil tonnes a year in 2002, Cambridge Energy Research Associates
(CERA) last September forecast a steady increase in such cargoes,
peaking at 190-mil mt in 2009. CERA had previously anticipated this
trade peaking at around 158-mil mt in 2010 (See Energy Economist,
November 2003, page 3).
To some, Turkish pleading about the
environmental threat to the Straits is no more than a ruse to secure
support for the BTC line and its contribution of pipeline revenues
to the Turkish treasury. This may once have been true, but, a
quarter of a century after the Independenta, a decade after the
Nassia and with Istanbulis looking out on the tankers passing
through the Straits every day, it seems highly unlikely that it
underlines current Turkish policy.
"There is a real danger - one could
even say an imminent danger," says Oral. "It's not hypothetical.
People are more enlightened than in 1979, when the Independenta
caught fire. Turkish people have learned more about environmental
issues. Civil society is much larger. Saying that Bosphorus
regulation is designed to boost BTC is damaging to the Bosphorus
issue itself, because the danger is real."
To Oral, the solution is pretty
straightforward. "Russia, Ukraine, the Caspian - they are all users
of the Straits. They should stop considering use of Straits as
'freebies'." Instead, she argues, "they should support the
regulations and add that on to the price of oil." She adds: "There
is a huge environmental cost and everyone should plan in accordance
with that. Because if there is an accident, everyone will lose. And
no-one has knows more than Russia the consequences of closing the
Straits."
(Platts Energy Economist Magazine, March 2004 Issue) |
