Khabarovsk refinery, Dalnefteprovod sign agreement on oil deliveries from ESPO
MOSCOW. Dec 6 (Interfax) - The Khabarovsk refinery (part of the Alliance oil company) and Transneft's subsidiary structure Dalnefteprovod have signed an agreement providing for pumping oil from the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline to the refinery, a source close to Alliance told Interfax.
The agreement assumes that within 22 months after its signing, oil deliveries to the Khabarovsk refinery will total 2 million tonnes per year; and within 34 months - 5 million tonnes per year.
Alliance Oil Company plans to appeal to the government by the end of this year for compensation for reduced income from export duties introduced under the new 60/66 system, a source close to the company told Interfax.
Alliance Oil estimates that it will lose around 4.5 billion rubles in income under the new system, the source said.
Alliance Oil is considering several compensatory options - a discounted railway tariff on oil shipments, discounts on connecting the Khabarovsk refinery to the main Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline and on pumping oil through ESPO, or other discounts that would allow the company to lower the cost of raw materials for processing at Khabarovsk, the source said.
Based on the company's estimate, the cost of directing oil from the Khabarovsk refinery to ESPO could total 3-3.5 billion rubles.
ESPO is being built for transporting oil to the Asia-Pacific market. The system's first section was commissioned at the end of 2009. The first phase included the construction of the Taishet (Irkutsk Region)-Skovorodino oil pipeline and the Kozmino Terminal at the Pacific Coast. Oil from Skovorodino is transported by railway to the terminal. The project's second phase foresees the construction of the Skovorodino-Pacific section and an increase in the terminal's handling capacity. Transneft started expanding the first section of the ESPO's first section in 2010 so that its capacity would increase from 30 million tonnes to 50 million tonnes a year. The project also foresees increasing the pipeline's capacity to 80 million tonnes a year in the future. ESPO should be fully launched with its second section in the third quarter of 2012. As part of ESPO's expansion, oil deliveries should be organized for the Komsomolsk Oil Refinery (6 million tonnes), Khabarovsk Oil Refinery (6 million tonnes) and Primorsk Oil Refinery (5 million tonnes). Total investment in the expansion of ESPO has been estimated at 170 billion rubles.
