Putin launches Pacific oil pipeline

[A.V.]

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin officially launched on Monday the East-Siberia - Pacific Ocean oil pipeline during his visit to the region.
The Russian premier also visited the specialized maritime oil-loading port of Kozmino, the final point of the ESPO project, where he gave the start to pumping the first batch of Siberian oil into an oil tanker.
The ESPO project is designed to pump up to 1.6 million barrels (220,000 tons) of crude per day from Siberia to Russia's Far East and then on to China and the Asia-Pacific region
The project's first leg envisages the construction of a 2,757-kilometer (1,713-mile) section with a capacity of 30 million tons (220.5 million barrels) 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 (1,300 miles) from Skovorodino to the Pacific Ocean. It will pump 367.5 million barrels of oil annually.


The Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean oil pipeline is a planned pipeline system to export Russian crude oil to the Asia-Pacific markets (Japan, China, Korea). The pipeline to be built and operated by Russian pipeline company Transneft.

ria novosti link

 

[A.V.]

Germany approves Russia's Nord Stream gas pipeline project

Germany issued permission on Monday for the construction of Russia's Nord Stream gas pipeline in its exclusive economic zone.
The permission was issued by Germany's Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency in Hamburg. Earlier, Germany permitted the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in its territorial wasters.
Nord Stream AG, the project operator, has already received permits from Denmark, Sweden and Russia through whose waters the pipeline will pass, and also the Finnish exclusive economic zone permit and a permit for the 50-kilometer (31-mile) section of the pipeline in German territorial waters and landfall in Lubmin near Greifswald.
Nord Stream AG only has to obtain the second and final permit from Finland for the project's construction.
"We are firmly on schedule to start construction of the pipeline in spring 2010 and to start transporting gas in 2011", Nord Stream's managing director, Matthias Warnig, said.
Nord Stream will be 1,220 kilometers (758 miles) long and will consist of two parallel lines. The first leg, with a carrying capacity of around 27.5 billion cubic meters a year is due for completion in 2011. The second line is due to be completed in 2012, doubling annual capacity to around 55 billion cubic meters.
The Nord Stream pipeline, which will pump gas from Siberia to Europe under the Baltic Sea, bypassing East European transit countries, is being built jointly by Gazprom, Germany's E.ON Ruhrgas and BASF-Wintershall, and Dutch gas transportation firm Gasunie at an estimated cost of $12 billion.
Gazprom has already signed long-term contracts to supply gas through Nord Stream to customers in several EU countries including Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, Nord Stream AG said on its website.

 

[A.V.]

the nordstream pipeline will increase russian dominance in the oil and gas market of europe this will help russia bypass the eastern european states and supply the rest of europe thsi helps russia control ukraine , poland and the baltics more indirectly the goahead shows that EU is still divided