Russia to launch Baltic oil pipeline in late 2011 - deputy PM

MOSCOW, July 1 (RIA Novosti) - The Baltic Pipeline System (BTS)-2, designed to pump oil from western Russia's Bryansk Region to the Leningrad Region, will start operating in late 2011, a Russian deputy prime minister said on Wednesday.

The pipeline to bypass oil transit countries was originally expected to go on stream in the third quarter of 2012.

"The BTS-2, including oil transshipment, will be finally launched in late 2011," Sergei Ivanov said at a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

With pipeline construction in full swing, there are also plans to construct an 18-meter deep canal at northwest Russia's Leningrad Region port of Ust-Luga to enable it to accept tankers with a capacity of 300,000 metric tons and transship large batches of oil toward European and other consumers, Ivanov said.

"The completion of the project will save us from being at the mercy of the whims of [oil] transit countries, and diversify our oil [supplies]," the official said.

Only two ports in the Leningrad Region, Vysotsk and Primorsk, have so far handled oil transshipment.