Above all, it has oil and gas: new pipelines will soon carry both from the Caspian to the Mediterranean.
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The key to the Caspian is the distribution of oilfields across the seabed.
For years, ecologists have given warning that the development of Kazakhstan's oil deposits in the Caspian threatens the sea's flora and fauna.
American interest in the pipelines that link the Caspian to the Mediterranean, doglegging round Armenia, mean that renewed fighting would echo far beyond the Caucasus.
If an agreeable-seeming Gazprom, along with increased bullishness about LNG and shale gas, were to dampen European enthusiasm for Nabucco, a long-planned pipeline which might bring 30bcm of gas a year to Europe from the Caspian and the Middle East, that would suit Russia pretty well.
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It sits astride a Russian pipeline running from the oilfields of the Caspian Sea to the ports of the Black Sea.
For its part, the United States is likely to import much more oil from Russia and the Caspian Basin in the years ahead.
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), a venture involving Western corporations along with Kazakstan, Russia and Oman, will carry oil west, north of the Caspian Sea.
Fesenjan is believed to have originated in Gilan province, a temperate green swath of land along the Caspian Sea in the north of Iran, where wild ducks are plentiful.
As for many Egyptian contractors, its biggest cash cows are the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf, but Maridive also operates in places such as the Caspian Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
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Located in the Caucasus region, Georgia is essential for gas and oil pipelines running from the Caspian Sea to the west, and therefore is strategically important for both Russia and the west.
In another of the twists in this fish story, the American companies seeking to supplant Caspian caviar may actually prevent the Caspian sturgeon from disappearing.
Last year, however, a consortium led by BP opened a huge pipeline between Baku, on the Caspian Sea, and the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Oil is piped from the Caspian Sea to ports in the Black Sea, increasing Russia's anxiety to maintain control.
Moscow has also been much more active than Europe in courting the Caspian rim countries that have the gas each pipeline needs.
The Tengiz problem is a mere puddle next to the troubles at Kashagan in the remote North Caspian Sea, the world's largest oilfield discovery in the last three decades.
Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, told Elizabeth Jones, America's envoy to the Caspian, last week that the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline would provide an export route for early oil from Kashagan, where production is due to start in 2005.
The country has been unable to benefit fully from its gas and oil deposits because of an absence of export routes and a dispute between the Caspian Sea littoral states over the legal status of offshore oil.
Kyl provided a valuable strategic overview of the vast oil reserves of the Caspian Basin -- and the urgent need for increased attention to the subject on the part of both American policy-makers and the public at large.
The small country, north of Iran on the Caspian Sea, is home to the Azerbaijan International Oil Consortium.
Georgia is an important link in the energy corridor that connects the oil-rich Caspian region with the outside world.
He also explains that the story of Prince Caspian "tells the restoration of the true religion after the corruption".
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Another factor has been the discovery of oil in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea last summer, where the Offshore Kazakhstan International Operating Company has been drilling.
The newly independent states around the Caspian have been hard hit by the break-up of the Soviet Union, and they're anxious to bring their reserves onto world markets as quickly as possible.
While the United States, Russia and Iran struggle for economic or ideological influence in the region, the Caspian's fragile ecosystem is buckling under the hasty and disorderly expoitation of its resources.
But stakes in the Caspian are high for all concerned -- and the race to develop its reserves is likely to continue to heat up.
The rich oil fields of the Caspian Sea lay over 1, 800 miles to the west, while there were unstable neighbours less than a couple of miles to the south.
About 20 birds have already died of hunger after the Caspian Sea froze over, local government spokesman Arslan Dydymov told the Associated Press.
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And recently Turkey has sounded keener, with American backing, for gas as well as oil pipelines to run from the Caspian across Georgia and into Turkey, to by-pass the prickly Russians.
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