With the click of a mouse, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last week
announced Russia's readiness to feed Asia's economic tigers.
Putin's action started loading oil onto a 100,000-ton tanker at the far east
port of Kozmino, east of Vladivostok, launching a much-anticipated new export
route to Hong Kong that will help satisfy Asia's growing need for energy.
The oil had already traveled far just to reach Kozmino, located near Russia's
borders with China and North Korea. Russia's new East Siberia-Pacific Ocean
(ESPO) oil pipeline originates in Tayshet, to the northwest of Lake Baikal in
Russia's Irkutsk Oblast. From there, it heads east for nearly 3,000 kilometers
before reaching Skovorodino (Amur Oblast) where the fuel is
loaded onto a train for the 2,100-kilometer trip to Kozmino.
Russia's Transneft oil-transport company spent some US$12 billion to build the
new oil pipeline and will have to spend another $10 billion to complete the
pipeline from Skovorodino to Kozmino. Transneft also spent some $2 billion
building a new terminal at Kozmino.
Transneft president Nikolai Tokarev, in Vladivostok, told reporters the
significance of the new eastern route.
"The launch of the East Siberian-Pacific Ocean Pipeline, first of all, allows
for intensive development of oil production in the region of East Siberia and
Yakutia," Tokarev said. "It opens the way for the East Siberian oil to the
perspective market of the Asia-Pacific region and to a great extent contributes
to the strengthening of Russia's energy security."
The new pipeline, when it reaches full capacity, will allow Russia to export
some 30 million tons of oil to China annually.
A 67-kilometer branch line running directly to China will be built next year in
cooperation with the China National Petroleum Corporation and will carry an
additional 15 million tons of oil when completed.
New era of development The ESPO pipeline is only the first stage of Russian plans to develop
Siberian oil and gas fields and export to countries in Asia.
As Putin noted at the inauguration on December 28, the start of the ESPO
pipeline also heralds a new era of development in Russia's resource-rich but
greatly underdeveloped regions in eastern Siberia and the far east.
"This project makes it possible for us to reach out to completely new markets -
the growing and promising markets of Asia-Pacific region," Putin said. "Russia
is present here today, but not sufficiently. But the point is not that we are
going to sell oil. The point is that this is a modern technology, an impetus to
the development of the far east and eastern Siberia."
Russia is developing several large gas and oil fields in the area east of the
Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
There are already plans for more pipelines to China and development of port
facilities along Russia's Pacific coast, including facilities for processing
and shipping liquefied natural gas (LNG), which Russian officials have
speculated could be exported to North America.
Additionally, there are plans to upgrade existing port facilities along
Russia's Pacific coast and to build new tankers to ship oil and LNG.
Copyright (c) 2010, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of
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