Gunvor sells Ust-Luga bunkering complex to Transneft
MOSCOW. Sept 8 (Interfax) - Swiss oil trader Gunvor has sold LLC Ust-Luga Bunkering Complex (ULBC), based in Kingsepp, Leningrad region, to Transneft , the Russian oil pipeline monopoly, a Gunvor representative told Interfax.
The deal was closed at the end of July. The company did not say how much the complex was sold for or what stake in the complex was sold.
The complex became a Transneft affiliate on August 14, according to Transneft's information.
The Ust-Luga port is the terminal for the Baltic Pipeline System-2 (BPS-2), which Transneft started to build in June. ULBC is building the tank farm. The port is also being expanded.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin has said that Transneft would receive a controlling interest in the Ust-Luga port, while the company's chief, Nikolai Tokarev, has said he thought Transneft might receive about 25%.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on November 26 last year signed an instruction on the design and construction of BPS-2, which will run from Unecha in the Bryansk region to Ust-Luga, which is on the Baltic coast about 120 kilometers from St. Petersburg. The project foresees the construction of a 1,170-km trunk pipeline in two phases. Capacity for an initial 30 million tpa of crude oil should be commissioned in December 2012, and rise to 50 million tpa in time. A total of seven oil-pumping stations will be built along the pipeline, as well as a 172-kilometer spur to the Kirishi oil refinery. The second phase of the project should be commissioned in December 2013.
The first stage of the BPS, original capacity 12 million tpa, was commissioned in December 2001 and intended to carry oil from the Timan-Pechora and West Siberian oil and gas provinces. Its capacity is currently 76.5 million tpa.