He said Russia's Energy Strategy provided for the development of oil pipelines and terminals for exporting oil to markets in Europe, the United States and the Asia-Pacific Region.
The minister said the main projects included expanding shipments to Europe by increasing the capacity of the Baltic Pipeline System and the port of Primorsk to 62 million metric tons a year. "It has been planned to reach this capacity next year," Mr. Khristenko said.
According to him, in order to gain access to the Asian-Pacific market, the decision was made to construct a Taishet-Pacific Ocean pipeline and a terminal for 300,000 metric ton oil tankers at one of Russia's Pacific Ocean ports, for example in Nakhodka. "The total capacity will amount to about 80 million metric tons a year," he said.
He noted that in order to get access to the American market, an oil pipeline grid was planned to be built from Western Siberia to the Barents Sea. The annual capacity of the grid, according to him, could reach about 80 million metric tons by 2020.
He said that the Caspian Pipeline Consortium's oil shipments from Kazakhstan are expected to grow to 67 million metric tons a year.
Mr. Khristenko said that the strategic agreement between ConocoPhillips and LUKoil should be an example of the new quality of work in the oil and gas industry.
"We expect that this agreement will be an example of a new quality of the work in the oil and gas industry," Mr. Khristenko said and added that the strategic agreement between ConocoPhillips and LUKoil completed the privatization of Russia's largest oil company.
"As a result, a number of the most important projects will be under the operational control of the joint enterprise," Mr. Khristenko said.
He called the sale of the state's stake in LUKoil to ConocoPhillips and the announcement of Gazprom's merger with Rosneft, the biggest events in the Russian oil and gas industry in the fall of 2004.
