AMEC Blockaded over Baku Pipeline Construction

At 7:30 this morning (thurs 10th July) Earth First! and other concerned individuals blockaded AMEC’s office in Warrington for 3 hours, demanding they pull out of the Baku pipeline. Staff and visitors were unable to park at the offices and, to get into work, had to clamber over people spanning the entrance with a tripod and a series of arm tubes and lock-ons.

It was a successful day, especially with helpful AMEC staff supplying useful info about AMEC and their involvement in the pipeline.

There were no arrests.

AMEC are being targeted because of their involvement in the environmentally and socially devastating BP-led Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline which is set to bring one million barrels of oil a day to Europe via Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. See the text of the leaflet given to AMEC staff below.

For further info on the pipeline and things you can do about it see:

Baku-Ceyhan Campaign:  http://www.bakuceyhan.org.uk
Rising Tide (a UK grassroots network against climate change): Tel 01865 241097 Email:  info@risingtide.org.uk Website:  http://www.risingtide.org.uk
 http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/manchester/baku

Related Stories:
London Rising Tide action at the British Museum
 http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/07/273896.html
Baku anti-Amec action, Manc.
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/07/273633.html

Stop the Baku Ceyhan Pipeline
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/07/273890.html

Blocking the Pipe
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/01/50747.html

Earth First! activists occupy EBRD in protest against the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/01/51276.html

Text of leaflet given to AMEC staff:

AMEC OUT OF BTC

AMEC is being visited today because of their involvement in the environmentally and socially devastating BP-led Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline which is set to bring one million barrels of oil a day to Europe via Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. AMEC will continue to be targeted until it pulls out of the project. Our aim today is to disrupt business as usual in order to draw attention to the terrible consequences of the pipeline outlined below. It is not too late to stop the pipeline being built. This is an action by a group of concerned individuals.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES:
The pipeline would cause major pollution. Unlocking these vast oil reserves would directly contradict climate change commitments. The burning of these reserves would have a catastrophic impact on the earth’s climate, for centuries. It would create more pollution each year than every power station in the UK, or the combined effect of every car, truck, bus and train in the UK, or twice as much as heating every house in the UK.

The pipeline route would run through the most serious earthquake zone in Turkey. The pipeline itself and the transport to markets would lead to greater risks of oil spills, as the recent Prestige oil spill shows.. Not to mention the risk of the pipeline becoming a target for guerrilla bombing campaigns as has happened historically.


HUMAN RIGHTS:
The pipeline would pass through 8 different conflict zones. BP’s pipeline in Colombia has exacerbated conflict in the region, with BP funding paramilitaries to silence its critics, including its own workers, to keep the oil flowing . Is AMEC prepared to be associated with this profit-driven brutality?

ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENTS:
These are vital for BP to get money from the public purse. They are also a joke. The assessments were carried out by ERM and RSK who presented the pipeline as a certainty, not a possibility. Furthermore, independent
researchers found that consultations had not been done in local languages, that many villages had been ignored and key locations excluded. The
consultants claimed to have talked to 100% of villagers in Hacibayram in north-eastern Turkey—a village which was, at the time, completely
abandoned following local conflict!

FINANCIAL BENEFITS FOR HOST COUNTRIES AND
LOCAL COMMUNITIES: It is often argued that projects like these will benefit the host governments and affected communities financially. The records show this is rarely the case. BP pays notoriously low taxes. It paid almost no tax on its North Sea pipeline system. Even if local people were employed by the consortium for the lifetime of the project, the long term consequences are the loss of local land, skills and health. In fact the only long term jobs to be created by the project are 350 in Turkey, 250 in
Azerbaijan and 250 in Georgia.

What’s this got to do with you?
This is a hugely unpopular and vulnerable project. If AMEC continues to support the pipeline it is risking your future. It has started construction on a project which has not yet been given an official go-ahead and has not
succeeded in securing the necessary funding (70% of £3.5b construction costs). This means that you could lose your job as AMEC struggles to keep its head above water having invested unwisely in a lemon. If BP was so
confident in the project, why isn’t it funding the project itself?

What you can do:
· Pass confidential information on to the Baku-Ceyhan campaign.
· Refuse to work on anything related to the Baku-Ceyhan project.
· Tell managers, directors and CEOs what you know about the pipeline and pressure them into pulling out.
· Get involved in the campaign (Subscribe to the campaign newsletter)
·

For further information, here are some contacts:
Baku-Ceyhan Campaign: www.bakuceyhan.org.uk
Rising Tide (a UK grassroots network against climate change): Tel 01865 241097 Email:  info@risingtide.org.uk Website: www.risingtide.org.uk
 http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/manchester/baku