MOSCOW, June 13 (RIA Novosti) - Gazprom (RTS: GAZP) pledged Tuesday to build a natural gas pipeline between two major cities in the country's Far East, with a possible offshoot to the Korean Peninsula.
"Although the project has not yet been announced, Gazprom will launch construction of a pipeline to link Khabarovsk and Vladivostok and may build an offshoot to the Korean Peninsula," said the Russian energy giant's deputy chairman, Alexander Ananenkov.
The new pipeline will be part of a major project to connect Sakhalin Island with the cities of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. The current pipeline between Sakhalin and Komsomolsk-on-Amur that Gazprom hopes to take over is an old system owned by state-owned oil company Rosneft, Ananenkov said.
The pipeline between Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Khabarovsk, which has projected annual capacity of 4.5 billion cubic meters, is slated to be complete by October.
In January, Gazprom and the Khabarovsk Territory government signed a deal on joint construction of a pipeline to link Sakhalin, Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Khabarovsk, as well as on development of gas transportation infrastructure. Gas supplies from Sakhalin are expected to start in 2010.
