Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Apr. 11 -- Russia's OAO Transneft has asked the government to make is final decision on the construction of a pipeline spur linking China to the projected East Siberia Pacific Ocean pipeline.
"It is a pressing matter and it could influence the whole concept of the ESPO construction," said Transneft Chief Executive Officer Nikolai Tokarev in a letter sent to Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Naryshkin.
The letter coincided with reports that OAO Giprotruboprovod plans to finalize a feasibility study for the second phase of the ESPO pipeline in November. OAO Giprotruboprovod, an institute that designs trunk pipelines, is the general designer of the ESPO's second phase for Transneft subsidiary OOO TSUP ESPO.
"The institute has started developing a feasibility study and we plan to complete it in November 2008," said OAO Giprotruboprovod General Director Zinovy Ovchar in an interview with Transneft's Truboprovodny Transport Nefty corporate journal. "The value of the project will be stated in an estimate at the next stage of the work," he said.
Transneft has linked the first section of the ESPO line to the trunk pipeline network and has begun filling the section. It said the pipeline will reach its projected throughput capacity of 80 million tonnes/year in 2011, about 2 years after its first phase is brought online in late 2009.
The first phase of the ESPO line will extend from the town of Taishet in the Irkutsk region of East Siberia to Skovorodino near the border with China, while Phase 2 will extend from Skovorodino to Nakhodka on Russia's Pacific coast.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
