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Chinese section may join Russia-China pipeline in September - deputy PM

© RIA Novosti . Valeriy Shustov / Go to the mediabankRussia-China oil pipeline
Russia-China oil pipeline - Sputnik International
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The last seam, connecting the Russian East Siberia - Pacific oil pipeline with its Chinese section, may be welded in September, in case Chinese workers do not wreck their schedule, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said on Sunday.

The last seam, connecting the Russian East Siberia - Pacific oil pipeline with its Chinese section, may be welded in September, in case Chinese workers do not wreck their schedule, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said on Sunday.

The project is a part of the East Siberia - Pacific oil pipeline, which was launched into operation in December 2009 and is designed to pump up to 1.6 million barrels (220,000 tons) of crude per day from Siberia to the Far East and then on to China and the Asia-Pacific region.

Earlier on Sunday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin participated in the opening ceremony of the Russian section in the Russian-Chinese oil pipeline, which took place in Russia's Far Eastern Amur region.

"Chinese friends will have to work for a while. Major efforts are ahead for them - 930 kilometers [of the pipeline] should be put up," Putin said at the ceremony.

"First oil delivery contact will be sealed this year with China, the second contract will involve some 125 millions tons per year," Sechin told journalists.

After the opening ceremony the Russian and the Chinese parties also discussed setting up gas and coal deliveries.

The Russia-China pipeline will stretch from the town of Skovorodino in the Amur region to the city of Daqing in China's northeastern Heilongjiang province.

In March, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said the construction of the pipeline would be finished by the end of the year and become fully operational in 2011.

Russia's largest oil company Rosneft, oil pipeline monopoly Transneft and China's state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) are partners in the project. In line with the contract, the Chinese side provided the Russian companies with a $25-billion loan to construct the pipeline. In exchange, the Russian side agreed to pump 15 million tons of oil per year via the pipeline in 2011-2030.

SKOVORODINO, August 29 (RIA Novosti)

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