Pipeliners

IRKUTSK, May 23 (RIA Novosti, Alexander Batalin) - A pipeline from East Siberia to the Pacific Ocean to supply countries in the Asia-Pacific region will be finished by December 2008, an official said Tuesday. Mikhail Chemakin, the head of Vostoknefteprovod, a company involved in construction of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline, said the terms would not be changed despite the need to bypass Lake Baikal. President Vladimir Putin said in late April that the ESPO pipeline should pass outside the drainage basin north of Lake Baikal, the world's largest body of fresh water and an environmentally sensitive zone on Unesco's list of World Heritage Site, upsetting state-owned oil pipeline monopolist Transneft's previous plans. "The directive to finish construction was defined by a government resolution as December 2008, and it remains unchanged," Chemakin said at a Transneft meeting in Irkutsk. Designers chose the longest variant for the new ESPO route, with the pipe passing 200km from Baikal. The bypass route will be 1,920 km long and will pass through the Irkutsk Region, Yakutia and the Amur Region.