OREANDA-NEWS. July 19, 2012. According to the current plans, the Syzran'-Saratov-Volgograd-Novorossiysk oil product pipeline (the YUG project) can be commissioned in 2016-2017, as Nikolay Gorban', the First Vice-President of Transnefteprodukt JSC (an affiliate Company of TRANSNEFT JSC) informed at the 10th Russian oil and gas congress.

He reminded that as a result of building of a pipe of 1465 km length and 8.7 million tons of annual capacity, Volgogradsky and Saratovsky oil processing plants will be joint to the system of trunk oil product pipeline. According to him, the Ministry of Power has already forwarded a letter to the Government of the Russian Federation, where they express their position on advisability of examination of question on starting the YUG project in the year 2013. "For the moment, this very question is being considered in the RF Government", he said. Today, light oils are being transported to ports of the Black Sea coast either by rail way, or by multimodal transportation. N.Gorban' added that the rail way hub in Novorossiysk can not always manage with the whole flow of exported cargoes, including the oil-loading ones.

N.Gorban' considers that the second potentially productive direction is expansion of the carrying capacity of Kirishi-Primorsk oil product pipeline (the SEVER project). This very project presupposes building of a linear part of 306 km length and reconstruction of two midpoint pump stations. It is planned to increase the system’s capacity from 8.5 to 12 million tons per year, with the further increase to 15 million tons. Approximately, the building works should be finished in the year 2015. Moreover, to provide the Moscow Region with oil products (diesel fuel, gasolines, and naphtha), NK ROSNEFT and LUKOIL Companies offered to rise a question on realization of project of building of a new oil product pipeline from Kstovo to Nagornaya midpoint pump station, which is positioned at the ring trunk oil product pipeline round Moscow city. For the moment, all the technical and economical calculations are done. “In January 2012, there were held negotiations in the Ministry of Power of the Russian Federation, where LUKOIL acknowledged its interest in realization of the project, and so the Company should give suggestions on the resource base and the financing scheme”, N.Gorban’ informed. To provide Moscow Region with extra volumes of oil products by Kstovo-Nagornaya route of 3.8 million tons annual capacity, building of a linear part of 465 km length, reconstruction of three midpoint pump stations, and building of a reservoir tank of 120 thousand cubic meters volume will be required.

The First Vice-President of the multinational enterprise noted that non-uniformity of qualitative characteristics of produced fuel is one of major deterrents of increasing volumes of oil products deliveries by pipeline transport. So, when mixing oil products of different sorts, the whole oil quality level in the system declines. At that, there is a serious barrier for implementation projects of expanding oil products pipelines and building of new ones: that is the absence of an integrated coordination in time schedule of modernization fulfillment and the dates of moving to production of oils of increased ecological class for oil processing plants of different companies. In addition, he noted that realization of programs of oil processing plants modernization, according to the quadripartite agreements signed by the Federal Antimonopoly Service, RosTekhNadzor, and RosStandart, will allow to increase the total production of light oil products in the years 2015-2016 by 58 per cent, and diesel fuel by 69 per cent in comparison to the year 2011. This will give a double excess of volumes over requirements of the inner market. It is expected that since the year 2016, at all the oil processing plants joint to the trunk oil product pipeline, there will be produced motor oil that corresponds the fifth ecological grade. “This will allow to transport monoproducts with common qualitative characteristics by the oil products pipeline”, - as N.Gorban’ underlined. In view of growth of oil processing depth at Russian oil processing plants while realization projects of expanding existing oil products pipelines and building new ones, it is planned to increase product input into the system from 32.4 million tons in the year 2011 to 54.5 million tons in 2020.