Pipeliners

KHABAROVSK, March 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Far East will get another natural gas pipeline by October, a regional minister said Wednesday. Khabarovsk Territory Energy Minister Vladimir Slivko said the pipeline, slated to run from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Khabarovsk, will make it possible for the regional center to switch its heating system from costly diesel and oil fuel to natural gas. Slivko said almost all of Komsomolsk's heating substations have already made the switch, and that this and other projects aimed at bringing natural gas to communities across the Far East will encourage Russians cut off from their country by the breakup of the Soviet Union to come and settle in the area. The Komsomolsk-Khabarovsk pipeline, projected to carry 4.5 billion cubic meters annually, will be part of a larger line linking the Pacific port of Vladivostok and the gas-rich Sakhalin Island. In January, the Khabarovsk Territory signed an agreement with natural-gas monopoly Gazprom to continue construction of the pipeline. It will begin supplying gas from Sakhalin to Vladivostok and neighboring cities along the Pacific coast in 2010.