Two sections of Yamal's Purpe-Samotlor pipeline to link-up

TYUMEN (Itar-Tass) - Two sections of the Purpe-Samotlor
pipeline are to get connected on the Yamal Peninsula on Wednesday.
The last joint of the oil pipeline, which will link the western and
eastern components of the Russian pipeline transportation system is to be
welded together in the area of the town of Noyabrsk.
Russian Vice-Premier Igor Sechin, Dmitry Kobylkin, Governor of the
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area, and Nikolai Tokarev, Chairman of the Board
of the Transneft Company, have arrived there to attend a ceremony marking
the occasion, the governor press service reports.
The construction of the Purpe-Samotlor oil pipeline was started in
March last year. Its coming on stream is planned for the fourth quarter of
this year. The pipeline's throughput will be 25 million tonnes of oil a
year at the first stage, and will grow up to 50 million tonnes when the
pipeline will be operating at full capacity.
The new oil pipeline, according to specialists' estimates, will enable
oil-industry workers to supply oil from the oilfields of Western and
Eastern Siberia in the direction of the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean
pipeline transportation system via the shortest route. The pipeline runs
across the territories of the Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous
Areas. Building operations are being conducted by the Sibnefteprovod
Company, a major subsidiary of Transneft.
The Purpe-Samotlor section is only part of the trunkline oil
transportation system Zapolyarye (Polar region)-Purpe-Samotlor. The
construction of a Zapolyarye-Purpe pipeline is to be started at the end
of the current year. The first to be built will be a pipeline section,
about 200 km long, from Purpe to Novy Urengoi district. It is planned to
put it on stream in December 2013.
At the second stage, it is planned to extend the pipeline northward
for about 100 km to the area of Gazprom-developed Zapolyarnoye gasfield.
That section of the pipeline is to be put into operation at the end of
2014. Another 100-km pipeline section running in the direction of the
Arctic Ocean is to be built by December 2015.