Entry tags:

aliyev, azerbaijan, bp, elchibey, karabakh, mi6, oil, thatcher

The conquest of the Caspian oil
Extended cross-post from Dirty.ru

Prostitutes, black caviar, cases full of dollars, MI6: how British Petroleum conquested Caspian oil.

Mr Abrahams tells how he spent £45 million in expenses over just four months of negotiations with Azerbaijan's state oil company.

Armed with a no-limit company credit card, he ordered supplies of champagne and caviar to be flown on company jets into the boomtown capital, Baku, to be consumed at the "sex parties".

The hospitality continued in London, where prostitutes were hired on the BP credit card to entertain visiting Azerbaijanis. ...

While employed by BP, Mr Abrahams says he was persuaded to work for MI6 by John Scarlett, now head of the service but then its head of station in Moscow. He says he was passing information to Scarlett in faxes and at one-to-one meetings in the Russian capital. He also claims that BP was working closely with MI6 at the highest levels to help it to win business in the region and influence the political complexion of governments. ...

Mr Abrahams helped to forge links with the local officials by throwing lavish parties. He said the Azerbaijani girls who worked in the BP office, which occupied a floor of the Sovietskaya hotel, would attend the parties and routinely provide "sexual favours". ...

Mr Abrahams, who left BP in 1994, said his first marriage buckled because of his work in Baku. He has since remarried and lives in West London with his new wife Lana and six-year-old daughter Anastasia. He now works as an adviser to the EU. ...

Among the guests at a dinner and ceremony at Baku's Gulistan Palace to celebrate the Shah Deniz deal were Lord Browne and Baroness Thatcher. ...

Some of Mr Abrahams' most intriguing claims surround the alleged co-operation between BP and the British intelligence services to secure a more pro-Western, pro-business regime in the country.

He says the operation, masterminded by Scarlett in Moscow, contributed to the coup in May 1992 which saw President Ayaz Mutalibov toppled by Abulfaz Elchibey, and then to a second change a year later which saw Haydar Aliyev take power.

Just months after Aliyev was installed, BP signed the so-called 'contract of the century', a £5 billion deal which placed BP at the head of an oil exporting consortium.

John Scarlett, says Mr Abrahams, "approached me very subtly and asked me to help to gather information for him.

"Because my daily route to the construction yard passed the supply routes for Nagorno Karabakh, he asked me to report on troop and weapons movements. And BP's deputy representative in Russia seemed very close to the embassy, too.

"BP supported both coups, both through discreet moves and open political support. Our progress on the oil contracts improved considerably after the coups."

Subsequently released Turkish secret service documents claimed BP had discussed an 'arms for oil' deal with the assistance of MI6, under which the company would use intermediaries to supply weapons to Aliyev's supporters in return for the contract.

When the documents emerged in 2000, BP denied supplying arms - although sources admitted its representatives had "discussed the possibility".

A BP spokesman said last night of Mr Abrahams' claims: "There are some facts in his account that are accurate, but we don't recognise most of it. We regard it as fantasy."

So much for European politics and free markets. Now, I wonder what is the history behind the recent Armenian government/Microsoft deal ;)

UPDATE: The article was removed promptly both from the Daily Mail and "This is London" web sites. Right at this moment its text is available online here.

UPDATE 2: Now it's back again.