Pipeliners

MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and China signed on Tuesday an agreement for the construction of a pipeline branch to China as part of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline. It was earlier reported that construction could start later this year. The branch, which runs from Skovorodino to the Chinese border, will have a capacity of 15 million tons of oil a year. The ESPO pipeline is designed to pump up to 1.6 million barrels of crude per day from Siberia to Russia's Far East and then onto energy-hungry China and the Asia-Pacific region. A 1,100 km stretch of the pipeline was opened in early October in Russia's Far Eastern republic of Yakutia. ESPO's first stage envisages the construction of a 2,757-kilometer (1,713-mile) section with a capacity of 30 million tons (220.5 million bbl) of oil per year. It will link Taishet, in East Siberia's Irkutsk Region, to Skovorodino, in the Amur Region, in Russia's Far East. The second stretch will run 2,100 kilometers (1,304 miles) from Skovorodino to the Pacific. It will pump 367.5 million barrels of oil annually. The Taishet-Skovorodino capacity will later be raised to 588 million barrels.