Canal to Link Caspian and Black Seas Proposed

On June 15, President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan proposed a $6-billion project to build a canal connecting the Caspian and Black Seas at the 17th Foreign Investors’ Council Meeting in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan. If built, the nearly 700km Eurasia Canal would be four times longer than the Suez Canal and eight times longer than the Panama Canal. President Nazarbayev believes the canal would make Kazakhstan a maritime power and benefit many other Central Asian nations as well.

Currently, vessels traveling from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea must travel north to the Russian Volga River, then west into the Volga-Don Canal, then southeast to the Don River, and finally onto the Azov Sea that opens into the Black Sea. The proposed Eurasia Canal would be a direct passage, 1,000km shorter than the existing route, and be able to handle three times the traffic capacity of the Volga-Don Canal (40 million tons/year versus 13 million tons/year). Additionally, on the current route a vessel needs to pass through a dozen locks, but only half that amount has been proposed for the Eurasia Canal.

However, Russian officials have proposed their own plan to improve travel between the two seas: expanding the Volga-Don Canal. Nevertheless, the proposed expansion plan would only increase its traffic-handling capacity to 16.5 million tons per year, which is a far cry from the Eurasia Canal’s proposed 40 million tons per year. Furthermore, Russia currently keeps very heavy restrictions on vessels from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan wanting to traverse the Volga-Don route. The Eurasia Canal would give all three nations ready access to the open sea, allowing each of them to greatly augment their freighter volume.

If President Nazarbayev is successful in finding investors for his proposed plan, he estimates that it will take no more than 5 years to complete, though some speculate that it could take as long as 10. Kazakhstan’s Academy of Sciences is currently analyzing possible routes for the proposed canal and will make recommendations by the end of the year. Though the Eurasia Canal would greatly benefit the surrounding countries economically, some worry that directly connecting two seas with different ecological systems could have dire environmental effects.