A 30-kilometer-cross-river oil pipeline will link railway lines
between Heihe, a port city in northeast China's Heilongjiang
Province, and Siberia's Blagoveshchensk in Russia.
The pipeline is China's first private oil pipeline that will
import oil from Russia.
The two border cities are the closest, separated only by the
Heilongjiang River in China and the Amur River in Russia.
"With the geological advantages, the pipeline we are building
will be a speedy and convenient shortcut to transporting oil from
Russia," said Tao Ran, general manager of the Heihe-based Xinghe
Industries Development Co Ltd, the pipeline's Chinese operator.
Estimated to cost a total of about 520 million yuan (US$64
million), Xinghe Industries will invest 342.33 million yuan (US$43
million), and the Moscow-based Russian Lanta Oil Company will
undertake the remaining 170 million yuan (US$21 million) in the
project.
Construction will include a railway unloading field and oil
transfer station in Blagoveshchensk as the inlet for the oil, four
underwater pipelines across the Heilongjiang River, and another
railway loading field and oil transfer station in Heihe.
Land reclamation for the railway facilities of the oil pipeline
on the Chinese side is already complete, according to Tao.
The whole project is scheduled for completion in September next
year, with an initial annual transporting capacity of 3 million
tons of oil. It might reach its full capacity of 5 million tons by
2008.
Amidst lingering
Sino-Russian oil pipeline issues, the construction of this
pipeline might be a good way to relieve the oil transportation
bottlenecks between the two countries, experts say.
At present, China mainly relies on railways, linking the land
port of Manzhouli in northeast China and the port of Erenhot in Inner
Mongolia, to import crude oil from Russia.
"The pipeline would definitely play a considerable role in
relieving saturation at the two ports," Song Kui, director of the
Northeast Asian Research Center in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang
Province, told China Daily.
China now imports about 10 million tons of crude oil from Russia
each year. That figure is expected to reach 15 million tons in
2006, according to an agreement signed between the two countries
last October.
An Zhaozhen, a researcher from the Russian Research Center of
Heilongjiang, welcomed the establishment of the pipeline as a "good
move" for private companies in Heilongjiang to tap into the Russian
markets.
"Oil by-products will be mainly provided to the users in
Heilongjiang Province, so this pipeline is more of local
significance," Song said.
Earlier this year, the province called for more privately owned
companies to venture further into Russian markets, An said.
But Song warned that Russia's new regulation on mines and
resources could create more barriers for Chinese companies looking
to enter this field.
"The new regulation rules out the possibility for foreign
companies to exploit Russian mineral resources," he said.
"Chinese companies would have to register another company in
Russia in order to do so," Song added.
Xinghe and Russian Lanta have established a joint venture in
Russia.
(China Daily September 28, 2005)