Putin reminds EU of Russia’s Pacific oil pipeline
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  • Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urges that the Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean pipeline, Russia's first oil pipeline to Asia, should be completed without delay. Putin’s statement underlined Russia's energy clout just hours before European Union (EU) leaders met to discuss the Georgian crisis. State-owned news agency RIA noted that Putin had signed a government order speeding up the building of the pipeline while on a visit to the Far East.

    The 1,680 km pipeline, which will stretch from Eastern Siberia to the Pacific coast, was being touted by the Kremlin as a means to diversify Moscow's dependence on energy sales to the EU. The two-stage pipeline has been delayed by a year and building costs have soared as constructors grapple with the complexities of Eastern Siberia, where temperatures regularly fall to 50 degrees celsius below zero and where infrastructure was practically absent. The pipeline, being built from Taishet in Eastern Siberia's Irkutsk region to Skovorodino on the Amur region near the Chinese border, would cost more than $12 billion. The latest launch date for the first part of the pipeline has been set for late 2009.

    The project is a key part of Russia's aim to boost sagging oil production and diversify oil supplies to the booming economies of Asia1.

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