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Russia will by May draw up detailed plans for the financing and construction of an estimated $11.5bn oil pipeline to the Pacific following a decision over the new year to adopt a Japanese-proposed route over one that would have favoured China. The long-expected decision to build the pipeline from eastern Siberia to the Pacific, from where oil can easily be transported to Japan, will be seen as a diplomatic victory for Tokyo over Beijing. Japan and China have begun to tussle fiercely over energy resources since China recently outpaced Japan as the world's second biggest consumer, though not yet importer,...

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia said it had ordered the construction of an oil pipeline from its huge Siberian oilfields to the Pacific Ocean opposite Japan, in a move to boost export opportunities throughout East Asia and to the United States. AFP/File Photo A "system of pipelines" with an annual capacity of 80 million tonnes would be built from Taishet in Siberia to Perevoznaya near Vladivostok and the eastern port of Nakhodka, the government said in a statement. Energy-thirsty Asian rivals Japan and China have been furiously competing for several years for access to supplies from the world's second biggest oil...

Russia approves Pacific oil pipeline Friday 31 December 2004, 18:49 Makka Time, 15:49 GMT The Russian government has given its final approval for a major oil pipeline to the Pacific, dropping the idea of a route to China.

Russia to build oil pipeline on Japan-proposed Pacific route Sunday, January 2, 2005 at 07:37 JST MOSCOW — The Russian government announced Friday it has decided to build an oil pipeline on a Japanese-proposed Pacific route for transporting oil from eastern Siberia to Nakhodka. Japan and China had proposed different routes for the pipeline to be built for access to the Russian oil. The Japanese proposal calls for Russia to build a pipeline from Angarsk, near Lake Baikal, to Nakhodka on Russia's Pacific coast, a route that allows Moscow to ship oil not only to Japan but also to other...

Venezuela plans talks with Panama next week on a proposal to pump oil through a Panamanian pipeline to the Pacific in order to cut shipping costs to China, the Venezuelan foreign minister said Wednesday. Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez denied that new agreements signed last week to sell Venezuelan oil to China are part of any strategy to decrease oil exports to the United States, the No. 1 buyer of Venezuelan crude. He said Venezuela has no intent to "sacrifice the North American population" but rather expects to "increase that flow of energy." The pipeline across Panama is being considered as...

China's West-East natural gas pipeline begins commercial operations today, according to officials involved in the project. Petrochina, the state-owned oil giant, which operates the pipeline, said yesterday it had signed agreements with 12 new customers, bringing the total number of downstream gas customers for its cross-country pipeline to 40. China's 4,000km pipeline is an ambitious undertaking to transfer natural gas from the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang province to China's eastern cities, including Shanghai. Su Shulin, a senior official with the company, said he expected the pipeline to break even this year and record a profit next year. He predicted the...

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia gave political support on Tuesday to a $1.2 billion private trans-Balkan oil pipeline that will allow Russian and Caspian crude to avoid congested Turkish waters, officials said. Representatives from the three small Balkan states signed a declaration giving the green light to the U.S.-registered Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corp., AMBO, to launch the 912-kilometer pipeline between Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas and Vlore, on Albania's Adriatic coast. "This is one of the most important infrastructure projects for regional, EU, and Euro-Atlantic integration for the western Balkans," Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano told...

CONFIDENTIAL: Top 3 companies lay out terms they want state to meet. Gov. Frank Murkowski on Thursday announced the three major North Slope oil producers submitted a proposal to the state laying out terms they want the state to meet before they commit to building an Alaska natural gas pipeline. Speaking at an Anchorage news conference on creating more Alaska jobs, the governor held up a binder of about an inch and a half thick and emblazoned with the logos of BP, Conoco Phillips and Exxon Mobil. The title on the cover said: "Alaska Gas Pipeline Project: Comprehensive Proposal to...

TBILISI, December 12 (RIA Novosti's Marina Kvaratskhelia) - Protesting people stopped the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan on Georgian territory. On Thursday morning residents of the village of Krtsanisi of Georgia's Gardabansky district blocked the road which the building company uses to bring the necessary equipment to the construction site. The residents of Krtsanisi are protesting against the actions of the British Petroleum company and the Petrofak contractor. During the construction of the pipeline the building company liquidated the irrigation system used by 44 families. BP representatives promised to build a new system but failed to fulfill this promise. The protesters...

The president of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association says Alaska needs $30 billion in new investment in the next 10 years to keep North Slope oil production flat until a natural gas pipeline starts up. This is in addition to the $20 billion to $30 billion North Slope producers will have to spend from 2005 through 2015 to run the existing fields and the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Without the $30 billion in new investment, state Department of Revenue projections show, North Slope production could drop from its current level of about 1 million barrels of oil per day...

ANCHORAGE--The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday heard from would-be operators and shippers on accessing a proposed natural gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope. The commission, meeting in Anchorage for the first time, plans to adopt by Feb. 10 an open-season rule--the process through which gas shippers can buy rights to use the 3,500-mile pipeline. The pipeline has been an unrealized idea of the state and energy industry for decades. The passage of the federal Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Act in October moved it a step closer to reality. The pipeline, estimated to cost $20 billion, would take about 10...

BEIJING: State oil giant Sinopec Group has signed a $70 billion oil field development and liquefied natural gas agreement with Iran, China's biggest energy deal with the No. 2 OPEC producer, an Iranian official said Friday. The preliminary deal may yield political benefits far sooner than commercial ones as Iran courts China's favor on the UN Security Council, where Beijing holds a potential veto over any action against the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Under a memorandum of understanding signed Thursday, China's second-largest oil firm, Sinopec Group, will buy 250 million tons of LNG over 30 years from Iran and develop...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is continuing his China visit amid growing frustration by his hosts over failure to agree to a contentious new pipeline. Mr Putin is in the ancient city of Xian after Beijing talks with Chinese leaders including President Hu Jintao. The two heads of state signed several agreements on Thursday, including a demarcation of borders which resolves 40 years of bilateral disputes. But there was no pipeline deal, which China needs to improve energy supplies. China and Japan have been pursuing rival plans to build pipelines to exploit oil from Siberia. China-Japan rivalry The Russia-China Business Council,...

WASHINGTON--Former Gov. Tony Knowles says new incentives to build a natural gas line aren't what the industry needs. Sen. Lisa Murkowski says they are. With congressional passage of the gas incentives last week, the opposing opinions have become an important debating point in the race for Alaska's open U.S. Senate seat. Knowles argues that Murkowski failed to deliver an essential piece of the package. Murkowski says Knowles is wrong and the incentives that did make it through should be more than enough to get the line to the next stage. The company that in many ways spawned this debate, and...

Editor's note: Following is a transcript from Thursday's roundtable discussion involving Sen. John Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, and a group of Lee Enterprises editors and executives who met for about 45 minutes in Davenport. Quad-City Times Publisher Michael Phelps: My question is on the draft vs. the all-volunteer armed forces. Those fighting and dying and shedding blood and limbs in the war now are largely are not coming from families of congressmen, corporate executives or academics, rather from those motivated by patriotism, along with work, health card and education benefits. Would the best test of the nation's resolve...

No need to top off the tank -- that advice Thursday from pipeline operator Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMP), after a train derailment in Southern California Wednesday night shut down a pipeline that brings fuel into Phoenix. Heavy rain Wednesday night forced a train to derail near Fontana, Calif., forcing the closure of a nearby gas pipeline. Kinder Morgan is cautioning Valley motorists against panic buying while the pipeline is shut down. Kinder Morgan spokesman Jay Thorne said there is more than a week's supply of local gasoline, and a two-to-three-day supply of diesel as long as consumers don't rush out...

I turned on local news midway through a report about a possible leak in the pipeline. It was stated that the governor was monitoring the situation and that Phoenix had a "several day" supply of gas. Anyone hear about this?

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit China from October 14 to 16. At a press conference held Sunday, Russian Ambassador to China Igor Rogachev said that Russia has decided to strengthen cooperation with China on large-scale projects to raise the level of economic coordination. He also revealed that the long brewing plan of Russia-China oil pipeline would be unveiled in a few months. Facing close questions from the press, Rogachev answered cleverly that why not wait for another few months for the final result since we have been waiting for ten years? According to agreements reached between high-ranking officials of...

Original Title: Pipeline construction begins in the Karaganda district Last week they began work on an oil pipeline to China. The pipe starts near the village of Atasu in the Zhanarkinskiy region and will end in the PRC at Alashan'kou station, a few kilometers past the border. A month ago 'Noviy Vestnik' wrote about a joint project of these governments, but back then the discussion only dealt with intentions. Now the first kilometer sign of the future main is up - there are another 961 to go - and the first joint has been welded. The pipeline is being built...

CHINA'S huge appetite for oil to power industry and its electricity generation is a commodity-market tectonic shift whose outcome and strategic implications are unclear. What is clear is that China is in a great hurry to close deals on long-term supply, including that of gas. There is also the trickier corollary to consider: Pipeline construction across international borders to reduce dependence on ocean supply routes that Beijing calculates can only get less secure. China is the second largest oil consumer after the United States, accounting for 40 per cent of the global increase in consumption since 2000. For a random...