PIPELINE WAR: AZERBAIJAN HALTS OIL FLOW THROUGH GEORGIA

AFP: Azerbaijan halts oil exports via Georgia ports: state oil firm

Azerbaijan has halted oil exports via the Georgian ports of Batumi and Kulevi due to clashes between Russia and Georgia, the head of the state oil company said Saturday.

"Since last night the import and export of oil through the Georgian ports of Kulevi and Batumi have been halted," said Rovnag Abdullayev, the head of the Azeri state oil company SOCAR, in televised comments.

"This is due to armed actions in the area of the Georgia-Ossetia conflict."

He added that SOCAR was "looking into the possibility of exporting oil through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, but the capacity of this pipeline is quite low," in a reference to a route that links the Azerbaijani capital to the Russian Black Sea Coast.

Earlier Saturday Russian planes staged a raid near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, a major international oil route that runs through Georgia, but did not damage it, Georgia's prime minister said.

In recent years Georgia has become an important transport route for oil from Azerbaijan and other Caspian Sea oil producers, allowing Western oil firms to bypass Russia's oil pipelines.

WE MUST FIRMLY SUPPORT GEORGIA AND COUNTER THIS RUSSIAN IMPERIALISM.

• THIS WAR COMES ON THE HEELS OF A KURDISH ATTACK ON THE SAME PIPELINE IN TURKEY, AND A RECENT FIRE.

• I SUSPECT THIS IS ALL PART OF A RUSSIAN STRATEGY TO REGAIN CONTROL OF THE REGION'S OIL AND THAT TO ACHIEVE THIS THEY ARE AIDING THE TURKISH-KURDS IN THESE EFFORTS AND ARE INVADING GEORGIA OR MAKING IT --- ONCE AGAIN --- A VASSAL STATE - (AS THEY WANT TO DO WITH UKRAINE).

ONCE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS WE CAN DO TO COUNTER THIS IS DRILL HERE - NOW.

VOTE ACCORDINGLY.