The order to begin the assessment of an investment feasibility study on the Skovorodino-China section of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline was signed by Konstantin Pulikovsky, the head of the Federal Service for the Oversight of the Environment, Technology and Nuclear Management, the service said.
China so far receives Russian oil by rail only. The energy-hungry economy will be able to import more crude from Russia when state oil pipeline monopoly Transneft completes its ambitious ESPO pipeline project.
The pipeline is slated to pump up to 1.6 million barrels per day of crude from Siberia to Russia's Far East, of which about 605,000 bbl/d will then be sent on to China and the Asia-Pacific region via the offshoot.
Sergei Darkin, the governor of the Primorye Territory, which borders on China, told regional officials Friday that the construction of the pipeline's end terminal in Kozmino Bay on Russia's Pacific coast, near the port of Nakhodka, will begin in April, with the first oil deliveries expected 11 months later.
The terminal will include two pumping stations and special port facilities, he said.
The first stage of the ESPO was launched last April and was initially scheduled for completion in the second half of 2008. It will link Taishet, in the Eastern Siberian region of Irkutsk, to Skovorodino, in the Amur Region.
The second stage will involve the construction of a Skovorodino-Kozmino pipeline, to pump 367.5 million barrels per year, and an increase in the Taishet-Skovorodino pipeline's capacity to 588 million barrels annually.
The entire project's cost was initially estimated at $11.5 billion, but needs to be revised as the pipeline's path was rerouted for ecological reasons about 400 kilometers (250 miles) away from Lake Baikal, the world's largest freshwater body, and divided into three segments following a series of discussions and a presidential order.