OREANDA-NEWS. July 19, 2012. TRANSNEFT JSC does not contemplate a possibility of oil export increase to China by pipe until the year 2016, as Nikolay Tokarev, the President of the Company reported. According to him, China offered TRANSNEFT to build a second offset line of the oil pipeline to China, so increasing its capacity twice, up to 30 million tons. Though, this proposition does not correspond to TRANSNEFT’s interests yet, as extra volumes of oil in the Eastern part of the Russian Federation will appear only after development of new oil fields in Eastern Siberia. N.Tokarev also pointed out that an offer by SUMMA Group about Russian oil deliveries from Primorsk to Rotterdam by shuttle tankers is not economically interesting for TRANSNEFT yet, as to create an alternative interest for exporters, they should cut the freight cost, and this will result in almost zero profitability according to this very transportation scheme. The President of TRANSNEFT JSC expressed his opinion that Komsomol’sky oil processing plant that belongs to ROSNEFT can be tapped to the trunk oil pipeline system within three years. According to him, this should be synchronized with the increase of volumes of oil deliveries from ROSNEFT’s Yurubcheno-Tokhomskoye oil field in the Eastern Siberia. “By sure, oil will be delivered to Komsomol’sky oil processing plant from here. We just can not get seven million tons of oil from anywhere to deliver into that pipe”, - he added.

N. Tokarev also informed that an oil product pipeline from Samara group of oil precessing plants by ROSNEFT to the Company's oil terminal in Tuapse can be built under the “Yug” project for ROSNEFT’s expenses. “This is just similar to the idea of “Yug” project. Nowadays we work with other companies, and this idea by ROSNEFT concerning building of an oil product pipeline corresponds to the intentions of our negotiations, and it will likely become a part of our project. Probably, it will complement this project”, - N.Tokarev said.

According to him, this work requires much attention, a lot of negotiations, and much time, too. ”ROSNEFT hasn’t given any official offers for the buiding works”, N.Tokarev added. He noted that Samara-Tuapse is ROSNEFT’s project directly, and financing of its realization should not be counted for TRANSNEFT’s investment program. “It’s ROSNEFT’s local project: the Company shall order and pay – and we shall built and operate. Another variant: ROSNEFT shall build the oil product pipeline and shall operate it itself”, - Mr. Tokarev said. He also added that TRANSNEFT has not yet received from the oilmen sufficient guarantees on oil products deliveries into “Yug” oil product pipeline. It’s only LUKOIL Company that guaranteed deliveries of three million tons per year, and that is not sufficient for starting realization of the project, as the Head of TRANSNEFT Company noticed.