Pipeliners

22 September, 2008 - Upstream OnLine - Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft will start pumping East Siberian oil westwards along the completed section of its unfinished Asian oil pipeline between 3 October and 5 October. Transneft, which is building the 2700 kilometre, 600,000 barrels-per-day oil pipeline to China, will let oil companies use the 1100 kilometre section to ship their output to the West until the completed line is ready to take crude to China at the end of next year. "The completed part of the pipeline has been filled with 800,000 tonnes of crude. It is now completely ready to start oil deliveries in a reverse mode to the West on 3 October to 5 Ocotber," Transneft vice-president Mikhail Barkov told Reuters by phone. Transneft has said Surgutneftegas, Russia's fourth-largest oil producer, is ready to start supplying the link with 180,000 tonnes per month from its Talakan deposit. Transneft's president Nikolai Tokarev told Reuters earlier this month that his company will set an exclusive tarriff for Surgut's deliveries along the link for this year. Transneft has said that BP's Russian venture, TNK-BP, will also use the link and is supposed to supply it with 40,000 tonnes of crude per month from its Verkhnechonks deposit, starting early next year. Russia's top oil producer, Rosneft, which has delayed the launch of its huge East Siberian Vankor deposit and was meant to be the main supplier of crude for the Asian pipeline, is now expected to start deliveries in the middle of next year. Russia hopes that the $14 billion Asian pipeline, its first to China, will help it to diversify oil exports away from European markets. The pipeline is also expected to encourage oil production in the oil-rich but undeveloped East Siberia, which is meant gradually to replace the mature oil resources of the established oil producing region of West Siberia.