Russia nixes East Siberia pipeline route

Feb. 6, 2006
Russia's environmental safety supervisory body has rejected proposals for the designated route of an oil pipeline from eastern Siberia to the Pacific Ocean.

Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent

LOS ANGELES, Feb 6 -- Russia's environmental safety supervisory body has rejected proposals for the designated route of an oil pipeline from eastern Siberia to the Pacific Ocean.

The Federal Service for Ecological, Technological, and Nuclear Supervision, or Rostekhnadzor, said Feb. 3 that the proposals "don't correspond to the demands of the federal law 'On Ecological Expertise,' insofar as they formulated vaguely...and are insufficiently justified."

The statement appears to be a blow for Russia's state-owned pipeline operator OAO Transneft, which had wanted to avoid the higher costs of building the terminal nearer the port of Nakhodka on Russia's Pacific Coast.

Cost concerns also contributed to a shortening of the planned pipeline route that would have taken it to a point within 1 km of Lake Baikal, a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization world heritage site and home to 20% of the world's fresh water.

Under Transneft's proposal, the pipeline route would run from the town of Tayshet in Siberia's Irkutsk region through Skovorodino in the Amur region to the port of Perevoznaya in the Primorye region on the Pacific coast.

Last October, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov—in an effort to speed up implementation of the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline project—directed relevant ministries and departments to prepare a detailed proposal by Nov. 10 (OGJ Online, Oct. 24, 2005).

The decision may also adversely affect Japan and China, which have been lobbying the Russian government separately to construct a pipeline to the East aimed at delivering supplies from eastern Siberia and reducing their dependency on Middle East reserves.

Last November, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to the construction of a two-stage pipeline aimed at delivering crude oil produced in eastern Siberia to the Pacific region (OGJ, Nov. 28, 2005, p. 24).