Pipeliners

20.07.2007 - IntelliNews Today - The construction of ESPO oil pipeline, which will run to the Pacific coast was postponed until 2015, deputy industry and energy minister Andrei Dementyev announced on Jul 19. Transneft will complete the construction of the first stretch of the pipeline, which goes from Irkutsk to Skovorodino near the Chinese border next year, the company’s president Semyon Vainshtok said. But the timeframe for second stretch’s building will depend on putting in operation fields in eastern Siberia , which is not expected to happen earlier than 2015. By that time, crude oil production in this region (carried out mainly by oil majors Rosneft, TNK-BP and Surgutneftegaz) is planned to reach 40mn tons annually. The first stretch of the pipeline will have the annual capacity of 30mn tons and the second will 50mn tons capacity. The major part of crude oil in east Siberia will come from Vankor field developed by Rosneft. In H1/07, Rosneft invested USD 1.5bn in exploration works at the field eager to start pumping oil by 2009. By the year-end, the government is to set tariffs for the pipeline’s usage. There are plans to raise the transit tariff from the initial USD 38.8 per ton as the project results to be more costly that it was planned. This money will be charged to transport oil via the pipeline until the border with China . However, according to EconMin German Gref, the price won’t exceed USD 50 per ton because in that case oil transportation through the pipeline will become unprofitable for the companies. Transneft also considers introducing a unified tariff for all the pipelines it operates to compensate the losses from ESPO project.