Russia completes Asia oil pipeline as Europe ‘frets’

Moscow creates powerful leverage

MOSCOW, Dec 24, (RTRS): Russia has completed its largest infrastructure project since the Soviet Union by expanding its eastern oil pipeline to the Pacific Ocean as it seeks to carve out a bigger share of the Asian market.

It took 6 years and more than $25 billion for oil pipeline monopoly Transneft to build the East Siberia — Pacific Ocean (ESPO) link to the port of Kozmino, which had formally relied on a rail link.

By completing the 4,200 kms (2,600 miles) line, Russia has created a powerful leverage for oil flows switches from East to West and visa versa, sending a warning signal to the European Union, which is heavily dependant on energy supplies from its former Cold War adversary.

Transneft has said Japan bought almost a third of ESPO exports this year followed by China with 24 percent and the United States with 22 percent.

Lucrative

President Vladimir Putin has urged oil and gas companies to increase their share in lucrative Asian energy markets. He was expected to formally open the pipeline in the early hours of Tuesday.

“This gives us an opportunity to efficiently work on the fastest-growing market in the world, on the Asia Pacific market,” Putin said last week.

The project has been in the Russian limelight since its start, and opposition activist Alexei Navalny has accused Transneft of a $4 billion embezzlement connected to the construction of the pipeline. Transneft denied the allegations. Analysts say that Europe’s fear of less