YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK. June 1 (Interfax) - Towing the foundation of Russia's largest drilling platform Berkut to the Sakhalin-1 project from Vostochny Port, Primorye to offshore northeast Sakhalin began on Friday morning, Exxon Neftegas Limited (ENL) told Interfax.

The joint venture VOSCF(the joint company of Russia's Sovkomflot and Dutch Van Oort) won the contract to tow and install the platform. The foundation of the platform is being towed by four tugboats.

"Transportation will take around two weeks. The convoy will have to travel almost 2,000 kilometers. It will cross the Sea of Japan then La Perouse Strait on to the Sea of Okhotsk - and there along the eastern coast of Sakhalin Island it will be move up toward the northern part of the island. The platform is expected to reach its destination, which is located 25km from the north-eastern coast of Sakhalin in mid-June," a company spokesman told Interfax.

Construction of the drilling platform foundation began in 2010 at VOSTCO Yard in Vostochny Port.

The platform area is 132 by 100 meters and it has a height of 54.7 meters. It weighs 160,000 tonnes. The Berkut platform has been designed to resist magnitude-9.0 earthquakes, temperatures of up to minus 44 degrees Celsius, 18-meter-high waves and up to two meters of ice cover.

The surface of the platform is currently being built by Samsung in Korea. The two parts will be joined in 2013 and the platform will go into operation in 2014 at Arkutun Dagi. It will be Russia's largest drilling platform in Russia and one of the top ten in the world.

Development of Arkutun Dagi will enable ENL (the operator of the Sakhalin-1 project) to increase annual production 4.5 million tonnes. The oil produced at this field will go to the Chayvo complex in north Sakhalin and then be transported by pipeline to the De-Castri terminal in Khabarovsk territory. The Arkutun Dagi development program envisages the drilling of 45 wells.

The Sakhalin-1 project includes three offshore fields: the Chayvo, Odoptu, and Arkutun Dagi, northeast of Sakhalin. Potential recoverable reserves total 307 million tonnes (2.3 billion barrels) of oil and 485 billion cubic meters (17.1 trillion cubic feet) of gas.

Sakhalin-1 shareholders are Exxon Neftegas Limited (30%), Rosneft (