ABSTRACT
The Caspian Sea became the site of the world’s first commercial oil industry, when oil reserves in Azerbaijan (then part of the Russian Empire) were developed at the end of the nineteenth century. Early exploitation of the region’s hydrocarbons took place onshore. Offshore drilling technology was developed during the Soviet era, and the first major offshore field, Neftyanye Kamni (Oily Rocks), came on-stream in the 1940s. Oil and gas production during the Soviet era led to high levels of pollution in the Caspian, largely because of a lack of awareness of the potential negative environmental implications. According to Hekimoglu, “[W]herever the oil industry had coastal and offshore operations, concentrations of contaminants in the Caspian were found to be several times the Soviet-recognized maximum permissible level” (Hekimoglu, 1999, p. 86). By the end of the Soviet era, the average concentration of oil in Baku harbour was ten times the maximum permissible concentration (Hekimoglu, 1999, p. 86). According to Azerbaijan’s Ecology and Natural Resources minister, pollution in the Caspian has decreased markedly during the past two decades in spite of a rise in oil and gas production, largely because of the use of modern technology, although Soviet-era wells are still causing significant damage to the sea bed. Furthermore, not all pollution is the result of industrial pollution. Natural seepage contributes to the pollution of the Caspian Sea as well.
