Russia's Putin launches new Pacific oil terminal

Russia launched on Monday a new Pacific oil terminal that will allow the world’s largest energy producer to conquer Asian markets and divert some Siberian crude flows away from Europe.

“This is a great New Year present for Russia,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told workers under a sunny blue sky in the snow-covered port of Kozmino near the Pacific city of Vladivostok.
“This is the completion of one of the biggest projects in contemporary Russia. This is a strategic project because it allows (us) to come to new markets, the growing Asia-Pacific markets,” Putin said.

Russia has long been seeking to diversify its oil exports away from the West amid often frosty relations with the European U-nion, its leading trade partner.

Putin pressed a computer mouse button to start crude flows to fill a 100,000-tonne tanker, The Moscow University, which officials said will sail to Hong Kong despite stormy winds.

Putin said the terminal cost Russia’s pipeline monopoly Transneft $2 billion.

It also spent $12 billion to connect Siberian fields with a pipeline to East Siberia from where crude is sent to Kozmino by rail while a pipeline spur goes to China.

Reuters