Azerbijani Oil, Gaza Civilians

A key issue in Turkey's suspension of trade with Israel

Will Azerbijani oil still flow through Turkey now that they’ve suspended all exports to Israel?

Oil is often described as “fungible” - the origin of the 2,2,4 trimethyl pentane you’re pumping into your car doesn’t matter to the engine. The notion of fungibility is mostly true, with the exception being weight and contaminants. You can’t ship heavy, sour Venezuelan crude to a refinery built to take light, sweet crude from the North Sea. Poor quality inputs require special handling.

Azerbijan produces about 1% of total global oil in the form of medium light sweet crude. But look at how and where it travels.

• Armenia - Russian ally.

• Azerbijan - has to get on with Turkey to get to market.

• Iran - Russia aligned.

• Iraq - Sunni/Shia U.S. dependency; complex.

• Russia - backs Armenia, gets on with Iran, relationship with Syria.

• Syria - tolerates Lebanon’s Hezbollah, who fight with Israel.

• Turkey - NATO member, but a rising power as globalization fades.

• Turkmenistan - I can’t even.

• Missing from the map - Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbijan.

• The detached bit of Azerbijan is Nakchivan.

• Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey all have significant Kurdish population.

• Abkhazia is de facto Russian statelet in northwest of Georgia.

• South Ossetia is near the A in Georgia on this map, a Russian exclave.

And now we have SoCal Armenian Extremists Attack UCLA Protesters.

I wrote Understanding The Caucasus eleven years ago, when it was clear we were going to have some trouble from the region. My attention on it preceded by several months the Boston Marathon Bombing by Dagestani immigrants.

Conclusion:

There are only just so many hours in each day. The Geocyber section of this site is a peephole into what I’m thinking about when I’m not focused on cyberconflict stuff.

If I were a man of leisure I’d probably spend more time on history and geopolitics, but since I’m not the best I can do is try to segue towards things that are more interesting (and profitable) that what I’ve done in the past.

But now it’s all …merging, coming together, and moving at an increasingly rapid pace. As Recognizing & Remediating Burnout indicates, I’m in dire need of a break. And I’m starting to fear I’m not going to get one …