Pipeliners

MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will pump 1.3 million barrels of oil a day via one of the country's ambitious energy projects by the middle of the month, the energy minister said Monday. Viktor Khristenko told a government session that the last stage of the Baltic Pipeline System would be completed by mid-March. Oil for the United States and Europe will be exported from the new Primorsk terminal, built in the Leningrad Region so Russia could export from its own ports rather than having to trans-ship through the Baltic states. Khristenko added that construction of the pipeline started in 2000, and the first section transported oil from West Siberia and Kazakhstan. The section, commissioned on December 27, 2001, had a capacity of 12 million metric tons a year (241,000 bbl/d). In 2003, the capacity was raised to 30 million (602,465 bbl/d), and then to 42 million (843,452 bbl/d) in February 2004, and subsequently 50 million (1 million bbl/d) in December 2005. The pipeline's current capacity is 55 million (1.1 million bbl/d). Khristenko said a 1,600-km pipeline, 17 refineries and an oil terminal in Primorsk have been built under the project and that, despite criticism of possible environmental impact, the pipeline met global ecological standards and was the best in the Baltics. He said stage-by-stage commissioning of the pipeline was justified, as the project would close with no debts owed. In late December 2004, the government accepted a proposal from the Industry and Energy Ministry and oil pipeline monopoly Transneft to expand the capacity of the pipeline to 60 million tons (1.2 million bbl/d). The government also approved a syndicated $250 million loan for Transneft to cover the third stage of the project.