By Nailia Bagirova
BAKU (Reuters) -Fast falls within the degree of the Caspian Sea are affecting ports and oil shipments and threatening to inflict catastrophic injury on sturgeon and seal populations, in response to Azerbaijani officers.
The Caspian, the world’s largest salt lake, holds important offshore oil reserves and is bordered by 5 nations which are all main producers of oil or fuel or each: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan.
Azerbaijan’s Deputy Ecology Minister Rauf Hajiyev instructed Reuters that the ocean had been getting shallower for many years, however figures confirmed that the pattern was accelerating.
Its degree has fallen by 0.93 metres (3 ft) previously 5 years, by 1.5 metres within the final 10, and a couple of.5 metres previously 30, he stated in an interview, estimating the present price of decline at 20-30 cm per 12 months.
“The retreat of the shoreline adjustments pure circumstances, disrupts financial exercise and creates new challenges for sustainable improvement,” stated Hajiyev, who represents Azerbaijan in a joint working group with Russia that met for the primary time in April to debate the issue.
Regardless of worsening relations between the 2 nations, in response to the protocol signed between the 2 nations the working group plans to approve a joint programme on-line in September for monitoring and responding to the difficulty.
Russia hyperlinks the issue primarily to local weather change however Azerbaijan additionally blames Russia’s development of dams on the Volga River which gives 80% of the water getting into the Caspian.
Hajiyev stated the falling water degree was already affecting the lives of coastal populations and the work of ports. About 4 million folks dwell on the coast of Azerbaijan, and about 15 million within the Caspian area as an entire.
He stated ships are going through elevated difficulties when getting into and manoeuvring within the port of Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital. That is lowering cargo capability and elevating logistics prices, he added.
REDUCED OIL CARGOES
Transportation of oil and oil merchandise by means of the Dubendi oil terminal, the biggest within the Azerbaijani waters of the Caspian Sea, fell to 810,000 tons within the first half of 2025 from 880,000 in the identical interval of final 12 months, in response to Eldar Salakhov, director of the Baku Worldwide Sea Port.
He linked the decline to the falling water degree, which he stated was making it mandatory to hold out main dredging work to make sure steady and uninterrupted port operations.
In 2024, greater than 250,000 cubic meters of dredging had been carried out on the Dubendi oil terminal to make sure that the biggest tankers may enter with out restrictions, he instructed Reuters.
In April, the Baku Shipyard completed constructing a brand new dredging vessel, the Engineer Soltan Kazimov, which is because of enter service shortly. Salakhov stated it could be capable of deepen the underside to 18 metres with a view to assist preserve the port’s capability.
THREAT TO FISH AND SEALS
Hajiyev, the deputy minister, stated the retreat of the waters was destroying wetlands, lagoons, and reed beds and threatening the survival of some marine species.
The largest blow is to sturgeon, prized for his or her caviar, that are already beneath menace of extinction. They’re shedding as much as 45% of their summer time and autumn habitats and being reduce off from their conventional spawning grounds in rivers.
Caspian seals are additionally threatened by the shrinking sea space and disappearance of seasonal ice fields within the north, the place they breed, he added.
“With a 5-metre drop within the sea degree, seals lose as much as 81% of their breeding websites, and with a 10-metre drop, they’re virtually fully disadvantaged of appropriate websites,” Hajiyev stated.
(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova, Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Modifying by Alison Williams)