In 1992, eleven of the nations that surround the Black Sea formed the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Zone. The purpose behind this new alliance was mainly to forge some sort of working guideline among the countries to ensure the highest possible economic cooperation. There were also hopes to create better connections between countries in terms of transportation of information, products (they refer mainly to oil), and people. This region of the world surrounding the Black and Caspian Seas has enormous economic potential. Only recently they have discovered vast oil reserves that could surpass the Middle East in oil production and make these countries economically sound for a long time to come. This blessing, however, must be treated carefully to ensure greatest production rates while avoiding any disputes within neighboring countries.

What does this have to do with the Bosporus Strait? Transportation of the oil from oil rigging sites to the rest of the world for use, has traditionally involved the Bosporus Straits. Pipelines would run from the Caspain oil fields to the Black Sea where the oil would then be placed on ships and sailed through the Bosporus into the Mediteranean and then on to its worldwide destination. This has been the main method of transportation of oil from this region. But as the amount of oil being exported increases, more strain is being put on the Bosporus Straits. Only so many boats can travel through the Bosporus per day without placing great strain on the environment and without making a trade off on the safety of those living along the shores. A number of accidents have occurred where ships have run into each other or into the shores. For an account of some of the more recent accidents click here.

The Montreaux Convention completely disregarded provisions for the environment when it made its debute in 1936. The possibility of advances in technology, bigger ships, and the vast increase in trade resulted in a more than quadruple number of ships passing through the strait since 1936. All of these factors were also major oversights in the Montreaux Convention. In 1994, to compensate for some of these oversights (while avoiding going to the extent of redoing the entire treaty, which would create an uproar from the Russians who get many rights from the Convention as it is now) the Turks, with permission from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) passed a number of new regulations. These regulations include a maximum ship height of 190ft (There are two bridges going across the straits), a rule that ships carrying hazardous material must pass through one at a time, and a rule that ships over 200 meters long must pass in daylight and in favorable weather.

To add to these revisions, but without still completely revising the Montreaux Convention, Capitan Oguzulgen, a captain who works on the Bosporus, believes there are still some important measures that can be taken to relieve the unhealthy state of the greatly important strait. He believes that "more modern ships, a program to provide special training to prepare officers to sail through the unpredicatable waters, and a reduction in the amount of hazardous material that passes through the Bosporus" would be much needed additions to the regulations already attached to the Montreaux convention. (Chelminski, 123)

But with all these revisions and additions to the Montreaux convention, wouldn't it just be easier to redo the entire thing? For a list of Pros and Cons on whether redoing the whole Montreaux Convention would make sense, click here. There has been much discussion on revising the Montreaux Convention to an even greater degree, but as of now there are no new developments. The other option that has been greatly dicussed and only recently decided upon is that of new pipelines to ease traffic on the straits by transporting oil by another route. For more information on the pipelines, click here.

For more general information, i.e. statistics on the numbers of ships that pass through the straits per day, numbers of accidents, and special stories on updated information try http://www.turkishpilots.org/ (It will take you out of this webpage and directly to the Turkish Maritime pilots association. It's in both English and Turkish)

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