Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 26
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
Inclusion of the Odessa-Brody-Plock-Gdansk oil pipeline project into the road map of strategic partnership between Ukraine and Lithuania until 2016 shows Ukraine's unchanging stance on the issue, the director general of the Sarmatia International Pipeline Company (IPC), Sergei Skripka told Trend.
The Sarmatia IPC was created July 12, 2004 by the Ukrainian company UkrTransNafta and the Polish company PERN Przyjazn to attract investments for the design and completion of construction of the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline till the Polish city of Plock.
Following talks between the presidents of Ukraine and Lithuania, Petro Poroshenko and Dalia Grybauskaite, it was noted that the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline, which is currently empty, still has good prospects.
This was also reflected in the road map signed earlier in Kiev.
Under this document, the parties intend to promote the implementation of joint projects aimed at diversifying energy supplies to Ukraine, Lithuania and other EU countries, in particular as part of the Odessa-Brody-Plock-Gdansk oil pipeline project.
"The fact that the project was included in this document primarily shows the unchanging position of the Ukrainian side, for which this project is extremely important, and has become even more important in the current situation [due to the crisis and difficult relations with Russia]," Skripka said.
He said this fact also indicates that one more partner [the Lithuanian side], which is also involved in the project, supports and treats it with attention.
Skripka also expressed hope that the scope of the signed road map of the Odessa-Brody-Plock-Gdansk project will positively affect its realization.
The Brody-Plock (Adam's gate) oil pipeline is currently the sole missing part of the Euro-Asian Oil Transportation Corridor (EOTC).
As a result of realization of this project, the Caspian states will receive an additional reliable route for their oil supplies to the European market, new customers, and their opportunities to work in adjacent markets will also expand.
The studies on the choice of a route for the future Brody-Adam's gate oil pipeline have been already completed. The route's total length will be 377 kilometers, some 120 kilometers of the pipeline being built in Ukraine, and 257 kilometers - in Poland.
Sarmatia's participants include Azerbaijan's State Oil Company (SOCAR), Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation Ltd. (GOGC), Ukrainian company UkrTransNafta, the Polish company Przedsiebiorstwo Eksploatacji Rurociagow Naftowych Przyjazn SA and the Lithuanian company AB Klaipedos Nafta.
The key participants own 24.75 percent share in Sarmatia each, and the Lithuanian company owns one percent share.
The oil transportation project Odessa-Brody was planned to diversify oil supplies to the Ukrainian oil refineries and to develop the transit capacities of the country.
The Odessa-Brody oil pipeline's construction was completed in May 2002.
Edited by SI