MOSCOW, February 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's president said the country would look for ways to reduce its dependence on transit nations in oil and gas exports to Europe.
Russia's state-run pipeline monopoly Transneft [RTS: TRNF] will increase the capacity of oil terminals at the Baltic port of Primorsk, near St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin said in an apparent reference to the pricing and tariff difficulties, in particular with neighbors Ukraine and Belarus.
"I have given instructions to the government, and Transneft has started work on expanding terminals in Primorsk by 50 million metric tons [366.5 mln bbl]," the president told a Kremlin news conference.
Russia, which supplies more than 25% of Europe's oil and gas, mostly via Belarusian and Ukrainian pipelines, is also leading a project to build the Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea as a direct link to Germany.
In a move that has angered Russia's neighbors, energy giant Gazprom [RTS: GAZP] has been seeking to introduce market prices for ex-Soviet nations, which enjoyed discounted rates since Soviet times.
A dispute with Belarus last month caused a three-day suspension of Russian crude piped via Belarus to Germany and several Central European countries. A similar spat with Ukraine a year ago left several EU states, including Italy, with a shortfall in natural gas supplies. Both incidents provoked concerns in Europe over Russia's reliability as an energy supplier, and accusations that Moscow is using its energy resources as a tool for political pressure.
The president said Russia valued European partners and was actively consolidating assets with them for the long term, until 2030-2035. He cited cooperation between Gazprom and Germany's BASF and Italy's ENI as an example.
The president also told reporters that, in a bid to avoid interruptions in energy exports, Russia would build new pipelines leading directly to Asia.
"We will accelerate construction of pipeline grids leading to the Pacific Coast in an effort to directly enter Asian markets," Putin said, adding that he understood European consumers' attempts to diversify energy supplies.
"We are not worried about it because we are in turn diversifying ways of piping energy to end customers in various markets," he said.
Putin said Russia was building a pipeline to the Far East, was planning an oil pipeline to China, and had laid down a gas branch across the Black Sea to Turkey. Russia is also considering the construction of a new pipeline - Blue Stream-2 - that will use Turkey as a transit point for exports to the EU.
"We are also thinking about building a second branch, probably either to Southern Europe or Central Europe," Putin said, adding that the pipe could lead to Hungary, Austria, Italy or even Israel.
However, Turkey clearly favors a project to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkey to Austria via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, but bypassing Russia. The $6 billion Nabucco pipeline, which will be completed by 2011, will have an estimated capacity of 30 billion cubic meters a year, and is seen as a rival to Gazprom's Blue Stream-2, which will have a capacity of 8 billion cubic meters and a commissioning date no sooner than 2012.
