Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft has started to fill the second leg of the East Siberia – Pacific Ocean pipeline with crude oil, the company’s press office said on Monday.
“Oil was supplied to the linear part of the trunk pipeline … at the section located at Skovorodino in the Amur Region,” the press office said in a statement.
The company expects oil to fill 197 km of the mainline pipeline, at which hydraulic tests and intra-pipe diagnostics were held in advance. After a technical pause, the company will continue filling the pipeline with oil.
The second leg of the ESPO pipeline is expected to go online at the end of 2012.
The ESPO-2 pipeline construction started on January 14, 2010, two weeks after the first leg was launched into operation when the first tanker with Russian crude oil was dispatched from the Kozmino port. The second leg will pump 30 million tons of oil annually with the eventual expansion of its capacity to 50 million tons.
The first leg of the East Siberian-Pacific Ocean pipeline is designed to pump 30 million metric tons of Siberian oil to China, Japan, and South Korea.
