Odessa-Brody profitability good at 25 mln tonnes of oil, but no sources - Tokarev
MOSCOW. April 10 (Interfax) - The Odessa-Brody-Gdansk route will be a profit-maker if 25 million tonnes of oil is put through it, the president of Russian oil pipeline company OJSC Transneft Nikolai Tokarev said.
"No real sources that can provide an amount like that are apparent today," Tokarev said in an interview given to the journal "Pipeline oil Transport/"
This project "is not as much of a concern for Russia as it is for European consumers," Tokarev said. "If something happens with Druzhba, through which oil is supplied to Southern and Central Europe that will effect the economic interests of those countries," he said.
"Of course, there is the possibility to reserve delivery through Ust-Luga and Primorsk, but this significantly increases the cost of deliveries to to refineries in Germany, but more so for the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary," he said.
Even though it is being gradually realized (a European Union feasibility study has approved the concept and the company Sarmatiya is working on the project), the project's economic justification needs to be considered, he said. "And serious doubts come up here," he said.
The Odessa-Brody oil pipeline, running 674 kilometers and with throughput capacity of 9 million annual tonnes and connecting the maritime Pivdenny oil terminal with the Druzhba trunk pipeline system was put into operation in 2001. It was initially built to move light Caspian Seal oil to Europe. But in practice the pipeline has been used in a reserve regime for pumping Russian oil. At present, the pipeline is used to deliver oil to Brody, with Belarus using it to move oil from Venezuela to Mozyr Oil Refinery.