MOSCOW, April 24 (RIA Novosti) - State-owned savings bank Sberbank will give state-owned pipeline monopoly Transneft a first loan worth $487 million for construction of the East Siberia-Pacific pipeline, the Transneft head said Monday.
"An agreement [with Sberbank] has been signed. Besides, we are holding talks with a syndicate of Western banks on a five-year loan worth some $2 billion," Semyon Vainshtok said in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta about the controversial $11.5-billion oil pipeline, set to tap Asian energy markets.
Vainshtok said the interest rate on the loan would be low.
"No one else in Russia is better at attracting money than [Transneft]," he said. "The company has no debts."
Vainshtok said China National Petroleum Corporation, with which Transneft signed a deal on construction of the pipeline, would bear the cost of constructing an offshoot pipeline from the Amur Region town of Skovorodino to the Chinese border, meaning Transneft would not need an additional loan from Chinese backers of the project.
"Transneft signed a protocol with [CNPC] that the section from Skovorodino to the Chinese border will be constructed using a Chinese grant," he said.
The pipeline is expected to pump up to 80 million metric tons a year (1.6 mln of bbl/d) from Siberia to the Russian Far East before being sent on to the Asia-Pacific region, in particular to energy-hungry China. The first stage of construction was initially expected to be completed by the end of 2008.
The pipeline has run into controversy, though, particularly over a stretch projected to run less than 800 meters from Lake Baikal, the world's largest body of fresh water and a Unesco World Heritage Site. Environmental groups have said that Baikal's delicate ecosystem could face massive damage in case of oil leakages or accidents on the pipeline.
