Transneft is set to launch the ESPO Phase 2 pipeline in October-November 2012, the company official announced on Friday at the forum "Fuel and Energy Complex of Russia in the 21st century."
"We intend to launch (ESPO-2), say, in October-November this year. This will be held in Khabarovsk, and two years ahed of schedule planned by the government," PRIME-TASS quoted Transneft Vice-President Mikhail Barkov as saying.
The construction of ESPO-2 started on January 14, 2010, two weeks after the commissioning of the ESPO-1, when the first oil cargo was loaded onto a Russian tanker at Port of Kozmino. The ESPO-2 projected capacity will be 30 million tons of crude oil expandable to 50 mln of crude oil a year.
Moscow-based Transneft is the state-owned Russian company responsible for the national oil pipelines. Transneft owns the largest oil pipeline system in the world, with a total network length of nearly 50,000 km. The company transports about 93% of the oil extracted in Russia.