Pipeliners

MOSCOW, April 20. (RIA Novosti) - Russia has launched consultations with investors on financing construction of an oil pipeline to connect East Siberia with the Pacific, Russian Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko has announced. "Consultations are underway with financial institutions that can contribute to the project in some way," he told journalists ahead of his visit to Japan. He did not rule out that Japanese banks could take part in financing the Eastern pipeline. At present there are opportunities to take loans on different markets, the minister emphasized. "The world has enough money for us to find creditors. The important thing is to find fairly cheap money for a fairly long term," he pointed out. Mr. Khristenko recalled that the project would be carried out in stages, so the funds would also be attracted in parts. "The idea of dividing the project into stages implies that fulfillment of some of them may start bringing profit, while new fields are explored and develop to increase the pipeline's load," he said. It is crucial to lay the pipeline to the Pacific coast to diversify Russian energy supplies, the minister stressed. He does not see "either moral or political threat in the fact that the oil, now shipped to China by railway in increasing amounts, will be carried by the pipe, when it is ready," he said. At the end of 2004 Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov signed a resolution on construction of a new pipeline from East Siberia to the Pacific ocean. It will go from Taishet to Skovorodino and on to the bay of Perevoznaya. Its total capacity is projected at up to 80 million tons of oil annually. The pipeline will carry oil to the Asian-Pacific countries. The cost of the project is estimated at $11.5 billion.