Vremya Novostei: "It’ll do us credit"
Ivan Gordeyev
East Siberia-Pacific Ocean Pipeline goes on stream today
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called an extraordinary meeting Thursday on the construction of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline (ESPO) in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence.
It was announced that reverse oil shipments along the first ESPO leg would begin today with an opening ceremony.
"On the whole, I am satisfied with the pace and quality of the work," the Prime Minister said.
Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, and Heads of Transneft and Surgutneftegaz, Nikolai Tokarev and Vladimir Bogdanov, respectively, said the pipeline will be provided with crude to fill it to capacity.
"Initially, the pipeline will carry more than 30 million metric tons of oil [a year]," Tokarev said. "Oil producers are certain they will be able to supply that amount from Western oilfields."
He said he was equally confident that oil companies would provide 80 million tons a year by 2020 to ship through the pipeline as planned. "We'll supply the amount planned and fill the pipeline. All has been calculated, with the branch link to China taken into account," Transneft head added.
The ESPO is a pipeline system that will run from southeast Siberia to export Russian crude oil to the lucrative Asia-Pacific markets. The project involves two stages: in the first stage, the pipeline will be laid from Taishet in the Irkutsk Region to Skovorodino in the Amur Region, and a marine oil terminal with a tank farm will be built in Kozmino to transport 30 million tons of crude a year.
From Skovorodino, oil will be shipped to the Pacific coast by rail.
In the second stage, a link between Skovorodino and Kozmino will be completed. According to earlier plans, the first leg was to begin operation between October and December 2008, but the commissioning was moved to late 2009. Therefore, a decision was made to begin reverse shipments westward along the pipe that has already been completed.
The Skovorodino-Daqing extension to carry oil to China, which is the most controversial issue in the ESPO project, was only briefly tackled at Thursday's meeting. It sounded as if the Russian government does not have a clear-cut position on its advisability.
Tokarev said that the extension's design has been completed and that China has already paid $37 million for a feasibility study. The project is currently waiting for Russian regulatory approval, he added.
China conducted an earlier feasibility study for a projected pipeline running inland from its border with Russia and is awaiting Russia's decision.
Putin, however, apparently was not in the mood to make decisions at the meeting, but instead preferred going over his recollections of the construction.
"I was in the Far East overseeing the Kozmino terminal construction and was satisfied with the pace and quality of the work," he said, adding that the project was hampered by the lack of required infrastructure in the region.
"Transneft and other companies had to do some additional problem solving on power supplies, road construction and environmental issues, of course. Going around Lake Baikal was a problem that entailed additional costs, but they were perfectly justified. We have generally modeled environmental friendliness. It will serve us well, and future generations will appreciate our effort," Putin said.
