OREANDA-NEWS.  On 23 April 2008 was announced, that the project to build a specialized offshore oil port at Kozmino was discussed between the administration of Nakhodka urban district and the general contractor.

According to sources at the press service of the urban district administration, Boris Gladkikh, first deputy mayor of Nakhodka, who is responsible in the administration for the construction of the oil terminal, and Valentin Fufayev, CEO of ZAO Trest Koksokhimmontazh, had a meeting to discuss the commencement of work at the bay of Kozmino, the destination point of the East Siberia - Pacific Ocean oil pipeline system.

The press service of Nakhodka administration has indicated that Koksokhimmontazh was selected as the general contractor in a tendering procedure and undertakes to provide work required to engineer the loading deck, the pipeline to the tank farm and the tank farm proper, excluding hydraulic facilities. Koksokhimmontazh was earlier involved in the engineering of a number of facilities for Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2, the Baltic Pipeline System and built crude oil tanks at Novorossisk for the Caspian Pipeline Consortium and Transneft; it is currently engaged in building an oil transhipment facility at Ust Luga for Zarubezhneft entities. In different periods the company was involved in oil-related projects in Ukraine and Cyprus, in Turkmenia, Azerbaijani, Kazakhstan, Norway, Iraq, Kuwait and elsewhere.

There has also been named one of the local contractors that will be used on the oil terminal project. Nakhodka-based “Kompleks” was awarded a contract for earthwork of 2,200 thou. tonnes, with a total of 4,200 thou. tonnes of soil to be removed by it. The facilities of “Kompleks” JSC comprise some two hundred units of heavy-duty machinery, a good infrastructure with workshops for repair and maintenance of machines and mechanisms.

"An authorization to commence work on the oil terminal is in the pipeline," - said Boris Gladkikh, Nakhodka's deputy mayor. In late March, the administration of Nakhodka urban district made a total of 144 ha of land available to be leased for this purpose. There were also a number of ordinances issued to allocate sites for temporary use.

The construction of the oil terminal at the bay of Kozmino is scheduled to be started in April 2008 and completed by the end of 2009. Under ESPO Phase I, oil will be shipped to the seaside by rail, to be then loaded on tankers up to 100 thou. tonnes in deadweight. The port's initial capacity will be 15 mln tonnes per year, to be later expanded to 50 mln.