MOSCOW, June 19 (RIA Novosti) - Pipeline monopoly Transneft will soon complete surveying work on the redesigned route of a major oil pipeline from East Siberia to the Pacific Ocean, the company's first vice president said Monday.
President Vladimir Putin issued an order in April to re-route the oil pipeline from the original plan, which would have seen it run within 800 meters from Lake Baikal, and Transneft head Semyon Vainshtok said in late May that the new route would be 10 times further away than what Putin had suggested was the absolute minimum (40km).
Vladimir Kalinin said that when the work was completed, he would be able to say how much exactly the construction would cost.
"After that, we can make calculations and speak about the final cost of the oil pipeline with account for the changed route," Kalinin told an annual conference for Renaissance Capital investors.
The East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline is slated to carry up to 80 million metric tons of oil a year (1.6 mln of bbl/d) to the Asia-Pacific region, most likely Japan and energy-hungry China. The first stage of construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008.
The first stage was to have cost $6.5 billion. But after environmentalists protested against the pipeline's proximity to Lake Baikal, the world's largest body of fresh water and an environmentally sensitive zone on Unesco's list of World Heritage Site, the president ordered that it be re-routed and the costs involved reconsidered.
