Russia to move some of its oil transport to Arctic

Indiga oil terminal on Barents Sea would deal with only small portion of oil now sailing through Gulf of Finland

print this

Russia is planning a new oil pipeline and oil terminal in the north of the country. This means that in the future, some of the crude oil that is now sailing through the Gulf of Finland from oil terminals near St. Petersburg could be shipped to world markets via the northern route - the Barents Sea.
      Russia has not given a precise schedule or cost estimate for the project, but the 430-kilometre pipeline from Kharyaga to Indiga would cost the Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft about EUR 1.5 billion.
      Finland would welcome this development, which would take some environmental pressure off the vulnerable Gulf of Finland, where the amount of Russian oil for export sailing through the narrow body of water is expected to reach EUR 210 tonnes a year by 2010. Oil tankers of as much as 160,000 tonnes are already navigating the narrow Straits of Denmark.
     
The capacity of the new pipeline and oil terminal at Indiga would initially be 12 million tonnes a year. Only about six per cent of oil transportation would move from the Gulf of Finland to the Barents Sea, which means that Russian oil transport would continue to be a major hazard for waters near Finland.
      Indiga is in the Nenetski Autonomous Region, which is just 1,000 kilometres from the Finnish border. The region's governor Valeri Potapenko said at a conference on Arctic sea transport held in Tromsø, Norway recently that the future harbour at Indiga would be suitable for year-round transport, and would be accessible to ships carrying as much as 300,000 tonnes.
      The oil would come from the Timan-Petshora region, which the Finnish oil company Neste, along with the US company Conco, has been very interested. The prospect of a northern oil terminal was raised already in the 1990s, but nothing came of the idea at that time.
     
Since then, initial studies have been made concerning taking oil from Timan Petshora and Western Siberia by pipeline to Murmansk, but that idea has also been buried. At present, oil from Timan Petshora is shipped to Western customers by way of the Primorsk terminal at the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland.
      Running a pipeline to the Barents Sea is a demanding task. There are nine rivers along the way, some of which need to be spanned with tunnels. The risk of environmental damage is great in the sensitive tundra.
      Transneft, Russia's oil pipeline monopoly, is quoted on the stock exchange, and has other pipeline projects in the planning stages, some of which are bigger than the Kharyaga-Indiga project. A 2,700 km. pipeline is to take oil from West Siberia to the Pacific coast, while a new pipeline 1,200 km long is to be built to Primorsk. The combined cost of the three projects is estimated at more than EUR 18 billion for the years 2007-2011.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Gulf of Finland feels impact of change in Russia (6.3.2007)
  Russia plans to launch larger than ever oil tankers for use in Gulf of Finland (11.6.2007)
  Transport of Russian oil through Gulf of Finland could double soon (5.3.2006)

Helsingin Sanomat