OREANDA-NEWS. March 02, 2012. TRANSNEFT JSC is planning to commission the second line of the East Siberia – Pacific Ocean oil pipeline (ESPO-2) in December, as A.Bezverkhov (the Vice-President of the oil pipe monopoly) said while his business visit to the Khabarovsk Region. The construction and assembling works will be finished in the third quarter of the current year, and the exploitation will be started in December, he declared. According to the Company’s estimations, the pipes would be filled with oil as early as the middle of the summer of the present year.

Thereupon, M.Barkov, the Vice-President of the Company, informed that China requests extra deliveries of oil through the ESPO pipeline (in addition to 15-30 million tons per year at present day). However, there are no any certain plans or decisions on this subject by now. “There are no plans on reallocation or redirection of extra flows to China now. Such appeals from the Chinese party has already taken place, and in case of a corresponding political decision, it would be possible. As for domestic consumption, the commissioning of ESPO system will not result in any losses here, as Barkov said. “The present year will be a very significant one for ESPO, as it is the year when ESPO will be put into operation. That is to say, the pipeline would function in the very sense it had been designed for – all of the 5 thousand kilometers would be commissioned and would work for the Russian Federation”, Barkov added.

The Vice-President of TRANSNEFT JSC has also commented the situation with the Burgas-Aleksandrupolis situation. TRANSNEFT JSC received 4.7 million Euro from Bulgaria in the beginning of February as payment of debt under the project of oil pipeline building, interest on the debt is still unpaid. “The problem of the debt by Bulgaria is not completely solved. There also exists a problem of loss caused to TRANSNEFT Company. We’ve also suffered losses to our image”, M. Barkov said. Thereupon M. Barkov informed that TRANSNEFT does not deny the possibility of oil pipeline laying to Greece avoiding Bulgaria. “There exists an idea that was born not so far ago, that an oil pipeline can be laid through the Turkish territory beyond the point of coincidence of Bulgarian, Turkish and Greek territories, with its outflow directly into Aleksandrupolis Greek port. Bypassing this certain corner, it outflows into the Greek territory, and arrives to the same Burgas-Aleksandrupolis pipe, but into its Greek part, into Aleksandrupolis port”, he clarified. “If there is a corresponding political decision, we would act promptly. All that we should have done under the Burgas-Aleksandrupolis project, we did it accurately, in advance, and with minimum losses”, he emphasized. M.Barkov mentioned, that nowadays about 15 projects of bypassing overloaded Turkish straits exist, and seven of them are the most practical ones. In addition to the building of the oil pipeline in Bulgaria, one of the projects presupposes pipe laying through the Turkish territory. “There is a variant of building a pipe line through the territory of Turkey. We were made such an offer, and our Turkish colleagues visited us. Economically, this very project may be even more cost-efficient than Burgas-Aleksandrupolis project”, the Vice-President of TRANSNEFT JSC declared. Also, M.Barkov informed that TRANSNEFT discusses with the Czech Republic and Germany the possibility of building a link between northern and southern branches of Druzhba oil pipeline on their territories. “The project is being discussed by the Czech and the German parties on the question of building a link between northern and southern branches of Druzhba pipeline. And we take part in these discussions”, he said and clarified that the question refers to the building of a pipe of about 300 km length through the territory of the Czech Republic and Germany. “The cost of the project can be compared with the cost of Burgas-Aleksandrupolis oil pipeline, and TRANSNEFT JSC can be involved into this project exceptionally as a contractor organization, with no own investments”, M.Barkov said.