Construction with SOCAR shareholder in it to start soon

The international pipeline enterprise Sarmatia plans to complete work on the documents required for submission to fund the Euro-Asian oil transport corridor by the European Union till June 2013, UNIAN reported quoting Sergei Skripka, General Director of Sarmatia.

Skripka said that the route of the Polish section of the pipeline, which is planned to be built on the basis of the Ukrainian Odessa-Brody pipeline, has been already included into the plans of all 19 Polish administrative units, via which the pipeline should be laid.

He also reminded that the company has applied for ecological permission and hopes to receive it after 2-3 months.

“As soon as we get ecological permission, we are going to fully meet the commitments that Sarmatia has undertaken within the framework of the preliminary agreement on funding of the project by the European Union,” he said.

He said that the main obstacle on the way of the project implementation is lack of the intergovernmental agreement between the countries-partners, signing of which is delayed by Poland.

Skripka said that the Ukrainian authorities have offered their Polish colleagues their involvement in the pipeline funding and promised to invest into the section in Ukraine.

Skripka also said that the state oil transport companies of Ukraine and Poland could also invest into the project and help to get credits. He added that representatives of the Polish government and PERN Przyjazn company did not support this idea.

The same source said that cost of the section to connect the pipeline from Brody with the Polish oil transport system is 455 million Euro, over 280 million Euro of which falls to cost of the Polish section.

Skripka also reminded that Poland could get around 120 million Euro to fund the project as a part of the European Union assistance programs, while Ukraine should find 140 million Euro for the pipeline construction and extra 30 million Euro for construction of the pumping station.

Representative of Sarmatia added that length of the missing section of the pipeline in Ukraine is about 120 km and in Poland about 270 km.

The Ukrainian government has repeatedly brought up the issue to prolong the oil pipeline up to the Polish Gdansk. However, the Polish side said that in order to implement the plans, it is necessary to sign the agreement between the suppliers and consumers of oil from the Caspian Sea.

In early October 2012 Azerbaijani Minister of Industry and Energy Natig Aliyev said that Azerbaijan is ready to load the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline with oil if it is extended up to the Polish border.

Sergei Skripka, General Director of Sarmatia, said that Brody-Plotzk oil pipeline could be probably built by the end of 2005.

The Odessa-Brody oil pipeline was built in 2001 between Odessa city on the Black Sea and Brody city in Lvov, where it was connected to the Druzhba oil pipeline. The pipeline length is 667 km and its capacity is 14.5 million tons of oil a year. It was planned to transport Caspian and Kazakhstan oil via the pipeline bypassing the Turkish straits from the Yuzhnii port near Odessa to the oil refinery in Eastern and Central Europe and to the north of Europe via Gdansk port. Till 2004 the oil pipeline stood idle and late on used in a reserve regime to the Yuzhnii terminal. Later on the oil pipeline was used in the reverse regime to transport oil to the oil refinery in Belarus. However, the pipeline has been standing idle since 2012.

* SOCAR is the shareholder of Sarmatia company, where it holds 24.75% share.—0—