Cheney on mission to get more oil for U.S.

USATODAY.com - Cheney on mission to get more oil for U.S.: "Cheney on mission to get more oil for U.S.
Posted 5/5/2006 8:41 AM ET
US Vice President Dick Cheney, left, attends a breakfast meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko sitting across the table.
Enlarge By Shawn Thew, AFP/Getty Images
US Vice President Dick Cheney, left, attends a breakfast meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko sitting across the table.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to Kazakhstan on Friday for talks with President Nursultan Nazarbayev, seeking to maximize access to the vast oil and gas reserves in the central Asian nation with a troubled human-rights record.

Cheney became the fourth top administration official to visit the former Soviet republic in recent months, underscoring the importance placed on a country that is strategically located and an ally in the war on terror, as well as rich in energy resources.

Administration policy favors development of multiple means of delivering Kazakhstan's energy supplies to markets in the West and elsewhere.

Among them, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher told Congress recently, the United States is 'working on securing the flow of oil' from North Caspian oil fields by tanker to a pipeline terminus in Azerbaijan. That route would bypass Russia and Iran. There has also been periodic talk of building a pipeline under the Caspian Sea."