4,700-km oil pipeline to connect Russian far east
In a news conference in Moscow on 27th December, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said that Russia is poised to proceed with the construction of a 4,700-km oil pipeline that is to link the Irkutsk region in western Siberia with Russia’s Far East. He said that the pipeline, which will also pump the fuel to the Asia-Pacific countries, is slated to be put into operation late next year.
In the first stage of the ESPO project, is a 2,757 km sector that will be built with capacity of 220.5 million billion barrels of oill per year. The first leg is estimated at $10-11 billion. The pipe line will link Taishet, in East Siberia’s Irkutsk Region, to Skovorodino, in the Amur Region, in Russia’s Far East.
The second leg is expected to extent from Skovorodino to the Pacific, for 2,100 km . It will pump 367.5 million barrels of oil annually and can be increased to 588 million barrels in the Taishet-Skovorodino section.