The leak came less than two months after Transneft signed an agreement with the local government promising to "guarantee the environmental safety" of its pipes in the region, and affected only the Inecha-Polotsk spur of the Druzhba pipeline, which serves Lithuanian refiner AB Mazeikiu Nafta (see our item elsewhere), and didn't interrupt the 1.2m br/d the pipeline transports to refineries in central Europe. However, Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the environmental agency Rosprirodnadzor, was critical of the state of the pipeline, saying that recent inspections had revealed no fewer than 487 "dangerous defects" along the affected stretch of pipe, mainly relating to the integrity of the pipes' walls and seams. "The steps being taken by Transneft to increase the reliability of these pipelines cannot provide a full guarantee of their safety," the news agency Interfax quoted Mr Mitvol as saying. Mr Mitvol said the pipeline in question contained two parallel lines, dating back to 1974 and 1964, respectively. "Previously one was the main pipeline and the other was a reserve, but now they are both operating at a pressure of 43.5kg/sqcm," he said, or around 617psi. The Ministry said later it had instructed Transneft to cut the pipeline pressure by 80%. Mr Mitvol's comments suggested that parts of the Transneft system are literally bursting at the seams, despite a slowdown last year in Russia's oil output growth: the amount of crude flowing through Transneft's export pipelines rose around 8% last year to 3.8m brl/d. Much of this is transported through more-modern lines such as the Baltic Pipeline System, although a significant quantity is still transported in the 30+ year-old network. The Natural Resources Ministry had at first claimed that the recent leakage had covered an area of 10 sukm, contaminating state forests and local waterways. However, a statement later released by Transneft said only 48 cum of oil had leaked over a surface of less than 1sqkm, and that the nearest waterway was over 4km distant. The Ministry subsequently removed the earlier reference to water pollution, but Interfax reported specialists' estimates of the spill at a much higher 100 tons, or more. Transneft says it has reduced the number of leaks due to corrosion to around 0.06 per thousand kilometers of pipeline, less than a quarter of the rate it had in the 1990s. However, there is no independent audit of its safety record at present.