Pipeliners

MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti) - Equipment and materials for building the pipeline system East Siberia-Pacific will be bought from Russian manufacturers, a source in the Russian Industrial and Energy Ministry told RIA Novosti. The ministry views as groundless any doubt related to Russia's emergence on the Pacific coast for exporting Russian oil to all countries in the Asia-Pacific region without exception, the source stressed. He recalled that at the first stage the first oil terminal in the Perevoznaya bay in the Maritime region will have a capacity of up to 30 million tones of oil annually. The second construction stage includes a linear section from the town of Skovorodino to the Perevoznaya bay, having an annual capacity up to 50 million tones. The source also said that at the ministerial conference, in which representatives of the economic development and trade, finance ministries and Transneft took part, in discussion were possible mechanisms of state support for the building project. Economic Development and Trade Minister Victor Khristenko has approved the building stages of the East Siberia-Pacific pipeline system. Its becoming an integrated pipeline system will be finalized by 2009, he said. Khristenko believes that the system will resolve the goal set way back in the 1980s - "creating a system that would encompass the entire territory of our country". The total cost of the oil pipeline system is 11.5 billion dollars.