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Russia orders oil pipeline to Pacific
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-01-01 12:24
Russia said it had ordered the construction of an oil pipeline from its huge
Siberian oilfields to the Pacific Ocean, in a move to boost export opportunities
throughout East Asia and to the United States.
Russia said it had
ordered the construction of an oil pipeline from its huge Siberian
oilfields to the Pacific Ocean opposite Japan, in a move to boost export
opportunities throughout East Asia and to the United States. In a major
sweetener for Beijing, Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko,
seen here February 2004, announced that Chinese oil conglomerate CNPC
could be offered up to 20 percent of the main asset of the dismembered
Russian energy supplier Yukos. [AFP/file] | A "system of pipelines" with an annual capacity of 80 million tonnes would be
built from Taishet in Siberia to Perevoznaya near Vladivostok and the eastern
port of Nakhodka, the government said in a statement.
Energy-thirsty Japan and China have been competing for several
years for access to supplies from the world's second biggest oil exporter after
Saudi Arabia.
But the 4,130-kilometre (2,560-mile) link to Nakhodka become the preferred
option earlier this year after lengthy talks with Tokyo, which has said it would
finance its construction.
No price tag was put on the project Friday, but Russian officials have said
previously it would cost some US$16 billion (12 billion euros) or almost seven
times the cost of the alternative option to China.
And for Russia, the Pacific route means that besides Japan, it could supply
oil to other countries in the region, including South Korea, and even,
potentially, the west coast of the United States.
Officials in Beijing have raised the possibility that a branch of Russia's
Pacific pipeline could be diverted eventually to China, although there was no
mention of this in Friday's statement from Moscow.
But in a major sweetener for Beijing, Industry and Energy Minister Viktor
Khristenko on Thursday announced that Chinese oil conglomerate CNPC could be
offered up to 20 percent of the main asset of the dismembered Russian energy
supplier Yukos.
In what would amount to a strategic energy tie-up between Russia and China,
Khristenko said China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) could end up owning
a significant chunk of the assets of Yuganskneftegaz, which pumps a million
barrels a day and owns 17 percent of Russia's oil reserves.
Moscow has signed agreements with CNPC reflecting bilateral "strategic
understandings" on the expansion of energy cooperation, deemed vital to
long-term economic growth in both countries, he said.
Russia is also proposing to pump oil west towards the Adriatic and ports in
Albania, Croatia and Greece, and north to serve North America via a Barents Sea
port, as it strives to boost its ability to supply rising demand in
international markets.
In October Khristenko said Russia's international oil pipelines would
transport 303 million tonnes a year by 2010 and 433 million by 2020. Last year
the pipeline network handled 182 million tonnes of Russia's total exports of 223
million.
Russian production of crude oil should reach between 550 and 590 million
tonnes per year by 2020 owing to development of resources in western Siberia and
the far East, the energy minister has said.
The state energy agency has forecast oil production will increase by six to
eight percent in 2004 from 2003 output of 421 million tonnes.
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