[yt_dropcap type=”square” font=”” size=”14″ color=”#000″ background=”#fff” ] I [/yt_dropcap]n today’s shifting world order, energy geopolitics subjects to nation-states’ political and economic interests rather than physical control of energy resources. It also refers to the pivotal ability to impose prices on energy products, even to gain broad access to the wealthy energy resources through imposing leverage power by wealthy states over other countries in order to retain their multi-dimensional access to well-off energy reservoirs.
The geo-energetic policy of nation-states mainly focuses on the acquiring accessibility to affluent natural resources in other countries in order to provide their basic demands and needs with respect to energy resources.
Upon the lifting of sanction over Iran, there have been appropriate chances and possibilities in order to retake geostrategic and political steps towards other regions, mostly the Caspian Basin, and the Gulf region, and then reintegrate into international energy marketplace to export its energy products and services. Although amid the sanction period of Iran imposed by the UN, Iran was deprived of the involvement of the foreign investments in its energy sector, its production of natural gas did neither observe a significant decrease amid the sanction period nor did it escalate much. After 2012, when the sanction was going to be far more severe, Iran’s natural gas production fell slightly but went up again in 2014.
In spite of the sanction, Iran was eager to make cooperation with Russia properly in the field of energy in order to increase its influence in major regions regarding the Caspian Basin and the Gulf region respectively. Iran also tried to evade from the restrictions and pressures of the U.S and was engaged in series of oil and gas deals including Brazilian Petrobras, Chinese Sinopec and in particular India in order to achieve balance and provide its domestic consumptions in the energy sector.
The West’s coercive diplomacy (sanctions) put some barriers on Iran for its emergence as a major oil and gas exporter, because of the fact that the sanction limited the access to foreign investments in its important energy fields. At that time, the multilateral relations with Brazil, India, and China concerned the European States and put their interests under pressure to secure access to Iranian gas. Together with the UN sanctions, Western governments forced its energy industries to cut off relations with Iran because of its aggressive and controversial nuclear program.
Despite those kinds of efforts by the West, Russia, China and other developing countries had in mind to enlarge cooperation with Iran and in turn, Iran also showed its willingness toward multi-sided cooperation in conjunction with its geo-energetic positions. Moreover, Russian also emphasized that it has always shown huge interests in cooperation with Iran and therefore, the sanctions by the West will not be able to impede Iran’s energetic activities and relations with other countries and even with Russia. In 2010, Russia signed the new-fangled roadmap agreements with Iran concerning the future development of cooperation in the oil and gas sectors. Like Russia, other major developing countries, including China, India, and Pakistan also exhibit more willingness to close cooperation with Iran in order to not only uphold balance and security in volatile energy but also provide their energy interests and demands. Today, Iran is strategically located at the heart of potential energy pipelines routes that give it leverage power to affect the geostrategic decisions of the neighboring countries.
The significant role of Iran in the energy market can be interpreted with two possible reasons. The first factor is that Iran holds nearly 10% (158 bbl.) of the world’s oil reserves as a possessor of fourth largest oil reserves and almost 18 % (34 tcm) of the gas reservoirs as the second largest holder of natural gas globally. The second reason is related to the geo-energetic position of Iran. Currently, Iran has large-scale geopolitical possibility in terms of its geographical location: on the one side, it has a huge potential to facilitate trade between East and West, on the other side, it can be able to use the energy factor as a geostrategic and political weapon in order to engender threats and challenges toward the countries.
Iran’s interests in the energy sector can be divided into two termed strategies: In terms of short-term strategy Iran tries to increase its accessibility to affluent energy resources and increase its economic participation in international energy market, in particular, gain large-scale access to the flexible Liquid Natural Gas by building more gas blocks in South Pars. From the economic perspective, the main ambition of Iran is to involve many foreign investors in energy sectors by the imposition of low oil prices that will contribute to the future development of energy sector. The long term strategy premises on the strategic and political target in order to exploit or use energy as a political means, mainly strategic weapon to influence or pose threats to other countries.
Historically, Iran has been the major exporter of oil products and services to date, but currently, Iran tends to deal with flexible natural gas resources rather than oil sector and is eager to endeavors both production and export of natural gas resources in global marketplace. To a large extent, in order to achieve the escalation of natural gas production, first and foremost, the main ambition of Iran is to develop the gas fields located in South Pars which is a shared region between Iran and Qatar. To date, Iran has achieved the development of nearly 24 gas blocks in the region. As a consequence of lifting up sanction, Iran is going to increase these numbers significantly by building up further dormant blocks which in future can lead to the increase of natural gas capability in Iran. Currently, the process regarding building new dormant blocks is ongoing and is planned to build five more latent blocks during this summer quarter. Secondly, another important reason why Iran strives to deal with the natural gas resources is its economic and political willingness to acquire LNG export capability that would be beneficial for Iran in the diversification of gas export routes by giving them strategic flexibility and accessibility. Thus, As a consequence of gaining access to LNG export capability, Iran could be able to transport its natural gas products within an arch of more than 10.000 km‒ with starting from the Klaipeda Terminal in Lithuania to Japan’s Nihonkai and China’s Lianyungang LNG terminals.
According to some scholars, after the Nuclear Deal, Iran will be able to gain potential power to increase its natural gas resources in the Gulf region. Another position of Iran is turned to be a major supplier of electricity for the entire region with respect to Turkey and the Gulf region. Iran’s main oil blocks are located in the Persian Gulf. At the same time, the strategic importance of the Caspian region force Iran to enforce both geo-energetic and political positions in conjunction with the Caspian countries.
1.Being the major guarantor or provider of the security of northern boundaries by upholding and preserving regional stability, and security in Central Asian states;
2.To achieve the development of close relations with the South Caucasian states and impede their integration to the Western-based energy projects and lessen its political and geo-energetic influence over the states;
3.To hinder the pro-Western activities of the South Caucasus countries and to solve the problems emerging in the region with the mutual efforts and understandings of the merely region’s countries;
4.To preserve close relations with Russia and Turkey;
Besides Iran, the other regional powers including Russia, Turkey, even China has own both political and geostrategic interests in the Caspian region and they always strive to participate in the geo-energetic game in the Caspian region.
Iran’s attitude or position toward Russia can be characterized both a rivalry and a partner. In terms of a rivalry Europe is trying to decrease its dependence on Russia and inclined to diversify its energy resources, therefore, Iran is eager to grab the chance to take control over European energy markets and export its products to Europe via Turkey, but it needs to gain access to the South Caucasus market to transport its products via successful infrastructures; the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, connecting the Caspian and Mediterranean seas. As a political and economic partner, Russia is important for Iran in order to take control over the Caspian Basin and decrease the West influence in this region. Therefore, Russia-Iran partnership is advantageous for both of them because of the fact that they are clearly aware of the nefarious threats that damage their interests and positions in the region. Take an example the European Union and NATO, who are increasing their democratic manifestation through political and economic agreements, the imposition of these kinds of treaties are highly destructive for both Russia and Iran and ostensibly, exhibit their opposition to the Western-based economic projects namely the Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Kars railway, The Trans-Caspian transit route, TAP, TANAP and other projects in particular, NABUCCO South Stream pipeline*. Therefore, Russia and Iran have a common position to work together against the West-based activities.
In general, the geo-energetic positions of Iran are clear regarding the followings aforementioned above that obviously explained the geostrategic, political and economic positions and aims of Iran. Thus, post-sanction Iran with its affluent oil and natural gas reserves strive to restore its strategic leverage as an energy superpower. The high demand for Iran’s resources from both Asia and Europe, and its close partnership with the other regional energy power; Brazil and Russia has created the opportunities to strengthen its own position in the energy battleground. The termination of sanction has highly influenced Iran’s position in the energy sector and today Iran stands on its own feet to become a major player in the international energy market.
*NOTE: The increasing interests of Iran over Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can be considered as a clear evidence that arise due to the Western-sponsored economic projects, mainly NABUCCO and the highly integration of Azerbaijan to South Stream gas pipeline can put some barriers for the future integration of both Russia and Iran to the global energy market place and deprived them of being the major holders of the oil and gas exports.
