Russia said Friday it had ordered the construction of an oil pipeline
from its huge Siberian oilfields to the Pacific Ocean opposite Japan, in a move
to boost export opportunities throughout East Asia and to the United
States.
A "system of pipelines" with an annual capacity of 80 million tonnes
would be built from Taishet in Siberia to Perevoznaya near Vladivostok and the
eastern port of Nakhodka, the government said in a statement.
Energy-thirsty
Asian rivals Japan and China have been furiously competing for several years for
access to supplies from the world's second biggest oil exporter after Saudi
Arabia.
But the 4,130-kilometre (2,560-mile) link to Nakhodka became the
preferred option earlier this year after lengthy talks with Tokyo, which has
said it would finance its construction.
No price tag was put on the project
Friday, but Russian officials have said previously it would cost some 16 billion
dollars (12 billion euros) or almost seven times the cost of the alternative
option to China.
Moscow's decision to pump its vast eastern Siberian oil
supplies towards Japan will come as a blow to China, whose energy-hungry economy
has turned it into the world's second largest oil consumer after the United
States.
Negotiations with China were complicated by environmental concerns,
with neither side able to agree on the route.
And for Russia, the Pacific
route means that besides Japan, it could supply oil to other countries in the
region, including South Korea, and even, potentially, the west coast of the
United States.
Officials in Beijing have raised the possibility that a branch
of Russia's Pacific pipeline could be diverted eventually to China, where energy
demand continues to outpace supply, but there was no mention of this in Friday's
statement from Moscow.
But in a major sweetener for Beijing, Industry and
Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko on Thursday announced that Chinese oil
conglomerate CNPC could be offered up to 20 percent of the main asset of the
dismembered Russian energy supplier Yukos.
In what would amount to a
strategic energy tie-up between Russia and China, Khristenko said China National
Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) could end up owning a significant chunk of the
assets of Yuganskneftegaz, which pumps a million barrels a day and owns 17
percent of Russia's oil reserves.
Moscow has signed agreements with CNPC
reflecting bilateral "strategic understandings" on the expansion of energy
cooperation, deemed vital to long-term economic growth in both countries, he
said.
Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a political enemy of President
Vladimir Putin, was a strong supporter of the China option for the eastern
Siberian pipeline. He has been in jail since October last year, facing fraud and
tax evasion charges, and his company is being dismantled to pay a massive bill
for back taxes.
Russia is also proposing to pump oil west towards the
Adriatic and ports in Albania, Croatia and Greece, and north to serve North
America via a Barents Sea port, as it strives to boost its ability to supply
rising demand in international markets.
In October Khristenko said Russia's
international oil pipelines would transport 303 million tonnes a year by 2010
and 433 million by 2020. Last year the pipeline network handled 182 million
tonnes of Russia's total exports of 223 million.
Russian production of crude
oil should reach between 550 and 590 million tonnes per year by 2020 owing to
development of resources in western Siberia and the far East, the energy
minister has said.
The state energy agency has forecast oil production will
increase by six to eight percent in 2004 from 2003 output of 421 million
tonnes.
This Agence France Presse Report was published December 31, 2004.