OREANDA-NEWS. Nikolay Brunich, General Director of Caspian Pipeline Consortium inspected the Expansion Project facilities as part of his business trip to Krasnodar Krai on October 15-16.

Following the inspection of the Tank Farm where the construction of additional 100,000 cu.m storage tanks goes at full drive, a working meeting was conducted with participation of Contractors and Project Management Company. Nikolay Brunich noted significant construction progress and the fact that all work was carried out in strict compliance with the safety standards. The latter was particularly important due to a large number of personnel employed on the site (the total headcount of the workforce directly engaged in the construction amounts to 1,100 persons).

It was also pointed out that owing to the joint efforts of the Working Group for online management of the Tank Farm construction and Project Management Contractor, all work at that site had been boosted, including activities of individual construction contractors; the set tasks were being resolved promptly. The meeting resulted in developing a strategy for commissioning new facilities.

In the course of the inspection trip Nikolay Brunich visited PS-8 which is being constructed in Krymsky District as part of Phase Three of the Expansion Project. The Company Head made a note of the outstripping construction rates - as of the day 35% of the total scope of work had been completed, which should allow to commission the facility in the second half of 2015.

CPC pipeline system is one of the largest investment projects in the energy industry with participation of foreign capital on the CIS territory. The length of the pipeline connecting the oil fields in Western Kazakhstan with the Marine Terminal near Novorossiysk is 1,511 km. CPC Marine Terminal is equipped with single point moorings which allow for safe tanker lifting at a considerable distance from the shore, also when the weather conditions are unfavorable.

The Expansion Project includes rehabilitation of 5 existing and construction of 10 additional pump stations (2 in the Republic of Kazakhstan and 8 in the Russian Federation), six new storage tanks (100,000 cu.m each) in addition to the existing four 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.

CPC Shareholders: Russian Federation (represented by Transneft - 24% and CPC Company - 7 %) - 31%; Republic of Kazakhstan (represented by KazMunayGaz - 19% and Kazakhstan Pipeline Ventures LLC - 1.75%) - 20.75%; Chevron Caspian Pipeline Consortium Company - 15%, LUKARCO B.V. - 12.5%, Mobil Caspian Pipeline Company - 7.5%, Rosneft-Shell Caspian Ventures Limited - 7.5%, BG Overseas Holding Limited - 2%, Eni International N.A. N.V. - 2% и Oryx Caspian Pipeline LLC - 1.75%.​