Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 10 -- Russia will begin construction this fall of the first leg of its planned 4,130-km crude oil pipeline from Taishet in eastern Siberia to the Sea of Japan, Boris Govorin, governor of the Irkutsk Region, told Russia's Interfax News Agency on Aug 10.
The pipeline will cross seven areas of the Russian Federation: Govorin's Irkutsk, along with the Chita and Amur regions, the Republic of Buryatia, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and the Khabarovsk and Maritime territories. It will end at an terminal planned near Bukhta Perevoznaya on the Amur Bay, about 100 km west of Nakhodka, the destination in earlier versions of the pipeline proposal.
Earlier, Russian Minister of Industry and Energy Viktor Khristeno said that the first section of the proposed Taishet-Nakhodka pipeline would be laid in 2008 and that two oil companies—Surgutneftegaz and OAO Yukos—would provide the crude (OGJ Online, June 13, 2005).
Govorin stressed, "It is necessary to do the planning work as soon as possible regarding the route of the pipeline because it is extremely important for our region to see this project implemented as soon as possible."
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov signed an instruction on Dec. 31, 2004, authorizing a stage-by-stage implementation of the project to build an oil pipeline with a capacity of as much as 80 million tonnes/year of oil and a railway link.
The first stage envisages construction of the 2,400-km Taishet-Skovorodino section and the export terminal near Bukhta Perevoznaya. Initially, oil will be pumped along the pipeline to Skovorodino and then sent by rail to the export terminal.
The second stage envisages construction of the Skovorodino-Bukhta Perevoznaya pipeline section when sufficient supplies of crude oil come on stream. No date has been set for the start of that construction.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
