Russian Oil Exports To Bypass Baltic Ports By 2015

July 6, 2008 12:44 p.m. EST

St Petersburg, Russia (AHN) - Russia plans to stop exporting oil through the Baltic states by 2015 in a move to reduce transport costs.

Instead, Russia will use a new $3.3 billion pipeline, the Baltic Pipeline System-2. Presently, Russia exports some 80 percent of its oil through ports in the Baltic Sea.

Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin reportedly said that Russian ports will have enough capacity to transit energy supplies by 2015.

A port at Ust-Luga in the Gulf of Finland off St. Petersburg is being built for oil and gas deliveries from Russia's oil-rich regions and Kazakhstan to Europe through the BPS-2, which connects the regions of Bryansk and Leningrad.

The port, on the other hand, has an expected annual capacity of up to 130 million tons.

BPS-2 came about after a dispute between Russia and Belarus over transit duties of oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline in January 2007. Deliveries were stalled for four days as Belarus refused to let Russian oil to transit without Russia paying the fees.