THE FIRST 1.2km of pipes have been laid for the first section of the Eastern oil pipeline (EOP) circumventing Lake Baikal, an official at the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean project control centre said recently. The total length of this section, which runs from the town of Ust-Kut in the north of the Irkutsk Region to the Talakan oil- and gasfield in Yakutia’s west, is 535km.
Over 200km of pipes have been delivered to the pipeline construction site, a two-branch ice-surfaced crossing across Lena River has been constructed to carry pipes to the sites, with more than 50 special heavy-duty machinery vehicles involved.
The EOP is under construction in two areas: from Taishet to Ust-Kut, and from Tynda to Skovorodino in the Amur Region. Around 530km of pipe sections have already been welded together, and 527km of pipes have been laid. The overall length of the first section of the EOP is about 2,800km, and it is scheduled to go on-stream at the end of 2008.
The Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline transportation system is being built to deliver Russia's hydrocarbons to China, Japan, and other Pacific Rim countries. The system's full rated capacity will be 80m tons/yr.
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