Russia said on Friday it had ordered the construction of an oil pipeline from its huge Siberian oilfields to the Pacific Ocean opposite Japan, in a move to boost export opportunities throughout East Asia and to the US.
A "system of pipelines" with an annual capacity of 80 million tonnes would be built from Taishet in Siberia to Perevoznaya near Vladivostok and the eastern port of Nakhodka, the government said in a statement.
Energy-thirsty Asian rivals Japan and China have been furiously competing for several years for access to supplies from the world's second biggest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia.
But the 4,130km link to Nakhodka become the preferred option earlier this year after lengthy talks with Tokyo, which has said it would finance its construction.
No price tag was put on the project on Friday, but Russian officials have said previously it would cost some US$16 billion or almost seven times the cost of the alternative option to China.
Moscow's decision to pump its vast eastern Siberian oil supplies toward Japan will come as a blow to China, whose energy-hungry economy has turned it into the world's second largest oil consumer after the US.
Negotiations with China were complicated by environmental concerns, with neither side able to agree on the route.
And for Russia, the Pacific route means that besides Japan, it could supply oil to other countries in the region, including South Korea, and even, potentially, the west coast of the US.
Officials in Beijing have raised the possibility that a branch of Russia's Pacific pipeline could be diverted eventually to China, where energy demand continues to outpace supply, although there was no mention of this in Friday's statement from Moscow.
But in a major sweetener for Beijing, Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko on Thursday announced that Chinese oil conglomerate CNPC could be offered up to 20 percent of the main asset of the dismembered Russian energy supplier Yukos.
In what would amount to a strategic energy tie-up between Russia and China, Khristenko said China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) could end up owning a significant chunk of the assets of Yuganskneftegaz, which pumps a million barrels a day and owns 17 percent of Russia's oil reserves.
Moscow has signed agreements with CNPC reflecting bilateral "strategic understandings" on the expansion of energy cooperation, deemed vital to long-term economic growth in both countries, he said.
Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a political enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was a strong supporter of the China option for the eastern Siberian pipeline. He has been in jail since October last year, facing fraud and tax evasion charges, and his company is being dismantled to pay a massive bill for back taxes.
Russia is also proposing to pump oil west towards the Adriatic and ports in Albania, Croatia and Greece, and north to serve North America via a Barents Sea port, as it strives to boost its ability to supply rising demand in international markets.
In October Khristenko said Russia's international oil pipelines would transport 303 million tonnes a year by 2010 and 433 million tonnes by 2020. Last year the pipeline network handled 182 million tonnes of Russia's total exports of 223 million tonnes.
Russian production of crude oil should reach between 550 and 590 million tonnes per year by 2020 owing to development of resources in western Siberia and the Far East, the energy minister has said.
The state energy agency has forecast oil production will increase by six percent to eight percent from last year's output of 421 million tonnes.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary