Pipeliners

MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) - Transneft [RTS: TRNF] has received permission to build the first leg of an oil pipeline under its Extension of East Siberia-Pacific Ocean project, the Russian state-owned oil pipeline monopoly said Tuesday. The company said its feasibility study was given a positive evaluation from a state expert appraisal agency. Earlier in the year, environmentalists condemned the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline, an ambitious project Russia is developing to pump oil from Siberia to Russia's Far East for exports to the Asia-Pacific region, particularly to energy-hungry China. President Vladimir Putin issued an order in April to reroute the oil pipeline from its original path, which would have brought it to within 800 meters of Lake Baikal, the world's largest body of fresh water. In late May, Transneft head Semyon Vainshtok said the new route will be 10 times farther away than the absolute minimum (40 kilometers, or 25 miles) that Putin had suggested. The construction of the 540-km (336 miles) first leg, which will connect Ust-Kut in the Irkutsk region and Talakan oilfield in East Siberia along the left bank of the River Lena, is expected to begin in January 2007 and include two pump stations, with contactors to be chosen in a tender in the near future. The new route will go to the village of Tynda, where it will join the preliminary projected ESPO system. Construction on the ESPO, estimated at $11.5 billion, began in April 2006. Since then, more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) have been laid, and 330 kilometers (205 miles) have been prepared for pipe installation. The pipeline is expected to pump 80 million metric tons (588 million bbl) of oil per year, including 30 million metric tons (220.5 million bbl) to China via an offshoot, whose construction is about to begin.