www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm
Pipeline timeline.
December 1991: Collapse of the Soviet Union, and the birth of Caspian Sea nations of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. 200 billion barrels of
oil in the Caspian Sea region.
1995: Unocal, seeking to build a pipeline across Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (for delivery to energy hungry Asia via the Pakistani Arabian
Sea coast), signed an agreement with Turkmenistan for natural gas purchasing rights for transport through a proposed pipeline. Unicol also signed an
agreement with Turkmenistan for an oil pipeline.
August 6th, 1996: Unocal and Delta Oil Co. of Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia’s Gazprom and Turkmenistan’s
Turkmenrusgaz to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan.
October 1997: Unocal and other oil companies formed Central Asia Gas Pipeline Ltd (CentGas) in preparation for building the trans-Afghanistan
pipeline.
1997: US Congress passed a resolution declaring the Caspian and Caucasus region to be a “zone of vital American interests”.
December 1997: Unocal invited Taliban representatives to their corporate headquarters in Sugarland, Texas to discuss the pipeline project. They were
thereafter invited to Washington for meetings with Clinton Administration officials.
January 1998: Unocal agreement signed between Pakistan, Turkmenistan and the Taliban to arrange funding of the gas pipeline project, with Unocal also
considering a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Arabian Sea coast oil pipeline.
1998: Vice President Dick Cheney, then CEO of the giant oil services company, Halliburton, stated: “I cannot think of a time when we have had a
region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian”.
February 28, 1998: Unocal Vice President International Relations addressed US House of Representatives clearly stating that the Taliban government
should be removed and replaced by a government acceptable to his company. He argued that creation of a 42 inch oil pipeline across Afghanistan would
yield a Western profit increase of 500% by 2015.
March 1998: Unocal announced a delay in finalizing the pipeline project due to Afghanistan’s continuing civil war.
August 21st, 1998: Unocal temporarily halted development of the pipeline project following the US missile attacks against targets in Afghanistan.
November 1998: The Trade and Development Agency commissioned Enron to perform a feasibility study regarding an east-to-west route, crossing the
Caspian Mountains and terminating in Turkey along the Mediterranean. (The route was later considered impractical, as it would cost an estimated $1
billion more than a route through Afghanistan.)
December 1998: Unocal issued a statement that it had withdrawn from the pipeline project on 12/4/98, noting “business reasons.”
May 15th, 2001: Regarding the placement of the Unocal Pipeline, a US Official delivered this ultimatum to the Taliban (via the Pakistani delegation
acting as their interlocutors): “Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.”
July 2001: Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan
would go ahead by the middle of October.
September 2001: World Trade Center attacked by al Qaeda; fifteen of the nineteen were from Saudi Arabia. John O'Neill, WTC security chief, and former
deputy director of the FBI, where he headed investigation of the al-Qaeda network, was killed in those buildings on that day. Since then thousands of
reputable Architects and Engineers from across the world have publicly doubted the findings of the 911 commission into the collapses of the buildings
and called for a new enquiry and grand jury www.ae911truth.org
October 7th, 2001: Military operations with aerial bombardment began in Afghanistan.
... and it goes on
www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm