Russia has given presentation of Vostok Oil project to China, Chinese partners looking at it - Novak

BEIJING. Dec 19 (Interfax) - Russia has given a presentation of the Vostok Oil project to China, and Chinese partners are currently looking it, Deputy Russian Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters.

"We talked about Vostok Oil today. I did, among others, from the point of view that this is a promising project. We gave a presentation of it, both Rosneft and Russian government, back in October at the Russian-Chinese energy forum. Chinese partners are looking at it now," he said.

The Vostok Oil project's resource base is more than 6.5 billion tonnes of premium low-sulfur oil. It includes 52 licenses in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District, where 13 oil and gas fields are located, including the fields of the Vankor and Payakha clusters. Rosneft planned to ship 30 million tonnes of oil from Vostok Oil via the Northern Sea Route in 2024.

Rosneft Chief Geologist Andrei Polyakov said at the beginning of November that has already built a quarter of the Vankor-Payakha-Bukhta Sever oil pipeline as part of the Vostok Oil project, with 200 km of its 770 km already laid.

The Bukhta Sever oil terminal should be commissioned in 2024. Capacity will grow in line with the development of Vostok Oil: from 25 million tonnes, then up to 50 million tonnes, reaching a full capacity of 115 million tonnes in 2030. In parallel with the construction of the port, tankers will be built to transport oil along the Northern Sea Route. The cost of building the oil terminal is estimated at 117 billion rubles.

Vostok Oil was being carried out with foreign partners which later divested their stake.