[Goldfisch]

Siberia-Pacific oil line construction this year

MOSCOW: Russia announced on Friday it expected to start construction this year of a multi-million-dollar oil pipeline from Siberia to the Pacific Ocean which will supply energy-hungry China, Japan and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region.

"The decision has been taken. I believe that by April all the agreements will have been concluded and we can anticipate beginning this summer," President Vladimir Putin said during a visit to the northeast Siberian republic of Yakutia.

The pipeline, which will cost an estimated 15-16 billion dollars (12-13 billion euros) and have a capacity of 80 million tonnes a year, is an important development for countries keen to ease their dependence on oil from the volatile Middle East.

None more so than Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, which relies totally on oil imports, 90 per cent of them from the Middle East.

But Putin’s announcement comes only days after the West discovered the risks of relying heavily on Russian energy resources. When Moscow flexed its muscles and cut off gas supplies to Ukraine on January 1 in a war over prices, energy markets across Western Europe suffered shortages.

When complete, the new Russian oil pipeline will run from Taishet in central Siberia to Perevoznaya Bay on the Pacific coast close to Russia’s southeastern border with China.

There will be 44 oil-pumping stations along its 4,200-kilometre route.

From the Pacific outlet Russia will be able to supply not only China and Japan but also, potentially, other Pacific Rim states like South Korea, Indonesia, Australia and the United States.

In only two years from now, oil is due to start pumping along the first section of the pipeline, which will run east from Taishet to Skovorodino, near Siberia’s border with China, Putin said.