Pipeliners

MOSCOW, June 6 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's state-run oil pipeline operator Transneft said Wednesday it would issue Eurobonds to finance the construction of the Siberian pipeline Russia is building to pump crude eastward. The ambitious East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline, managed by the company, is slated to pump up to 1.6 million barrels per day of crude from Siberia to Russia's Far East, which will then be sent on to China and the Asia-Pacific region. Transneft said it would issue five-year U.S. dollar- and euro-denominated bonds after it held its Eurobond road-shows in Europe and the United States, but declined to specify the size of the issues. Eurobond road-shows will be held on June 7 in London, June 8 in Paris, June 11 in Munich and Frankfurt, June 12 in Amsterdam and June 13 and 14 in New York, the oil pipeline operator said. The ESPO project was launched in April 2006 and the first leg of the pipeline, 2,700 kilometers (1,677miles) long and estimated at $11 billion, will be commissioned in December 2008. It will link Taishet, in the East Siberian region of Irkutsk, to Skovorodino, in the Amur region, in Russia's Far East. The initial project plans have been revised as the pipeline's first stage was rerouted for ecological reasons about 400 kilometers (250 miles) away from Lake Baikal, the world's largest freshwater body, and divided into three segments following a series of discussions and a presidential order. The second stage will involve the construction of a Skovorodino-Kozmino pipeline, to pump 367.5 million barrels per year, and an increase in the Taishet-Skovorodino pipeline's capacity to 588 million barrels.