The pipeline is slated to pump up to 80 million metric tons of crude a year (1.6 mln bbl/d) from Siberia to Russia's Far East, which will then be exported to the Asia-Pacific region, particularly to energy-hungry China.
"Work is underway -- we have gone the first hundred kilometers," said Anatoly Kvashnin, envoy to the Siberian district.
"We will start laying the first pipe in late August-early September," Far Eastern envoy Kamil Iskhakov said, adding that the site for the construction of the oil terminal had already been chosen.
The first stage of the project will connect Taishet, in the Irkutsk region, to Skovorodino, in the Amur region in the Far East, and will be completed in the second half of 2008.
Construction started in April 2006. Since then, more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) have been laid and 330 kilometers (205 miles) have been prepared for pipe installation.
The Russian leader said the meeting in such a format was not coincidental, as the project was inter-regional.
Kvashnin said the transfer of the pipe north from Lake Baikal, the world's largest body of fresh water, could both resolve the environmental problem and save funds. However, he said, workers should receive additional training.
In April, Putin ordered the pipeline re-routed from its original path, which would have seen it run within 800 meters of Baikal. And in May, Transneft head Semyon Vainshtok said the new route would be 10 times farther away than Putin had suggested should be the absolute minimum.
The plan had been at the center of controversy and protests by environmental groups, who said Lake Baikal, a UNESCO-listed World Heritage Site, could suffer irreparable damage in the event of an accident on the pipeline.
