OREANDA-NEWS. July 31, 2012. Nikolay Platonov, General Director of Caspian Pipeline Consortium, made a working trip to Astrakhan Oblast  where he informed Governor Alexander Zhilkin of the Expansion Project work status on the territory under the latter's jurisdiction.

Together with A. Zhilkin the Consortium's Head participated in the ceremony for handing over medical equipment purchased by Caspian Pipeline Consortium-R under the program to support the region social sphere to the Oblast Cardiology Health Center.

In addition to the equipment handed over by CPC in 2011, the Health Center received twelve sets of medical apparatus and equipment for more than RUR 22M. The advanced equipment will allow to conduct comprehensive check of the cardiovascular system functioning, identify pathology of the blood circulatory system organs, also in handicapped people. Thus, thanks to the sector transducer for 4D research donated by the Consortium the Cardiology Center specialists have received an ability of conducting a 3D heart reconstruction on line for clarification of localization and the extent of cardiac valve damage in patients in need of cardiovalvulotomy. This apparatus has no analogues in the South Federal Okrug.

The Administration and Cardiology Health Center staff thanked CPC-R Management for such a handsome gift.  The audience noted that the received equipment would help to enhance the promptness and quality of specialized cardiological medical aid to the Oblast residents, raising efficiency of the Center's interaction with the Federal Center of cardiovascular surgery. A. Zhilkin noted: "CPC is our reliable partner, who alongside with resolving its operation issues does a lot for the Astrakhan Oblast development. I am sure that this is the type of social responsibility which business should have".

A partnership agreement between CPC-R and Astrakhan State Engineering University was signed earlier in the Company's city office. The Agreement specifies the main terms of cooperation between the Consortium and the Oblast key higher educational establishment in education and scientific researches. In particular, it is provided to train specialists to be employed at the existing and new facilities of CPC pipeline system, arrange students' practical training, field practice and externship at CPC-R operations facilities, and also advanced training and professional re-training of the Consortium's personnel under the ASEU specially developed programs.

The CPC pipeline system is one of the largest investment projects with foreign capital in the CIS.  The length of the pipeline connecting oil fields in Western Kazakhstan with the Marine Terminal in Novorossiysk is 1,511 km.

The CPC Project was originally developed with a view to a potential expansion of its capacity by 2 ? times up to 67 MTA (76 MTA with DRA). CPC Marine Terminal is equipped with single point moorings which allow to safely load tankers at a significant distance from the shore, also under unfavorable weather conditions.

The Expansion Project includes rehabilitation of the existing and construction of 10 additional pump stations (2 in the Republic of Kazakhstan and 8 in the Russian Federation), six crude oil storage tanks (100 cu.m each) near Novorossiysk and a third SPM at the CPC Marine Terminal, and also the replacement of an 88 km pipeline section in Kazakhstan with a larger diameter pipe. The total amount of the Project investments will be USD  5.4 billion.