vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #564 / Business / Reading article...

A Siberian oil pipeline planned to deliver oil from the city of Taishet to the Primorye port of Kozmino may not see the construction of its second section, from the Amur town of Skovorodino to the Pacific coast, for at least four years due to a lack of oil reserves, officials revealed Tuesday.

“The construction of the second stretch of the oil pipeline may be delayed for three or four years because the planned increase of oil reserves lags behind the expected figures,” Sergei Fyodorov, director for geology and management of natural resources at the Natural Resources Ministry, told a press conference in Saint Petersburg.

The first leg of the pipeline, with a planned capacity of 30 million tons annually, meant to transport oil from Taishet to Skovorodino in the Amur region bordering China is expected to be built by Transneft by the end of 2008.

According to the report from Alexei Varlamov, Deputy Natural Resources Minister, current oil reserves in the field account to 557 million tons while the projected volumes so far should have reached 702.9 tons. Varlamov stressed the necessity to rapidly increase exploration, enabling the fruition of expected oil supplies to the Pacific coast.


From Rosbalt news agency and the official site of Natural Resources Ministry www.mnr.gov.ru>