OREANDA-NEWS. August 03, 2011. Nikolai Platonov, CPC General Director, currently on a business trip to the Astrakhan Region, held a meeting today with Alexander Zhilkin, Astrakhan Region Governor, to discuss some CPC Expansion project matters, reported the press-centre of CPC.

Nikolai Planotov briefed the governor on CPC capacity expansion activities that are currently underway. An upgrade of the existing Astrakhan pump station is started in the Enotaevsky District. Two new pump stations are planned to be built in the Krasnoyarsky and Narimanovsky Districts in 2013-2014. A high voltage power line will be constructed to provide power to the pump stations.

CPC’s total investment into construction and upgrades in the Astrakhan Region will be over RUR 12 bn. Construction contractors engaged under the Expansion Project apply for registration with regional tax authorities while the new CPC facilities will also be registered locally. All that will help increase the taxation base for both regional and district budgets. Several hundred jobs will be created for local residents for the construction period and subsequently, 60 steady well-paid job vacancies will be created to operate the new pump stations.

The CPC General Director and the Astrakhan Region Governor signed an amendment to an existing cooperation agreement between CPC and the Astrakhan Region that provides for the construction at CPC’s expense of educational and health facilities in upgrade and new construction areas. CPC plans to spend RUR 150 mln for that purpose.

Tallying up the meeting results Alexander Zhilkin stressed the significance of CPC’s investment for the region’s social and economic development and offered assurances on his own part that the region will provide CPC with all support necessary to address any administrative, legal and other issues associated with construction and operation of its facilities and infrastructure.

The Expansion Project is expected to bring the CPC pipeline capacity up to 67 million tons per year. The project includes the upgrading of the existing pump stations and the building of 10 new additional ones (2 in Kazakhstan and 8 in Russia), six oil storage tanks near Novorossiysk and a third single point mooring at the CPC Marine Terminal, and also the replacement of an 88 km pipeline section in Kazakhstan with a larger diameter pipe.