- Title: RUSSIA: Putin orders oil pipeline to be rerouted away from lake Baikal
- Date: 27th April 2006
- Summary: (EU) LAKE BAIKAL (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS SHOTS OF LAKE BAIKAL (5 SHOTS)
- Embargoed: 12th May 2006 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Domestic Politics,Energy
- Reuters ID: LVAB95PNGA2E35MQ17VX1NENLD2I
- Story Text: President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday (April 26) ordered a giant pipeline to be routed away from lake and also said Russia should focus on exporting oil to Asia.
Speaking at a meeting in the Siberian town of Tomsk, Putin said Russia, the world's second biggest oil exporter, was struggling with "unfair competition" on energy markets, and should therefor looking for markets elsewhere.
"Despite the great demand for energy resources, any excuses are being used to limit us in the north, in the south, in the west. We must look for markets, fit into the processes of global development," Putin said.
"The countries of the Asian-Pacific region are developing at great speed and need to cooperate with us," he added.
Many European countries have grown uneasy about their growing dependence on Russian energy imports, especially after Moscow cut supplies to Ukraine over the New Year in a dispute over price rises seen by many as politically driven.
State-controlled gas giant Gazprom said last week it would sell its gas elsewhere if its European expansion plans were blocked. This prompted anger in Europe until it backtracked and said it had not meant to make threats against its customers.
Putin said the construction of a giant oil pipeline that will carry 1.6 million barrels a day to the Pacific coast was a key project to allow Russia to diversify its supplies. In the same meeting Putin ordered the giant new oil pipeline to be routed away from Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake, delighting ecologists keen to protect its hundreds of unique species.
He said the pipeline, which will link Siberian oil fields and the Pacific Coast, must totally avoid the lake, which is highly earthquake-prone and which scientists say would be permanently damaged if oil spilled from the pipeline.
Putin backed a plan from scientist Nikolai Laverov, who proposed moving the pipeline to more than 40 km (25 miles) away from the lake -- from just 800 metres away as proposed by oil pipeline monopoly Transneft.
"The pipeline system we are talking about must go along the watershed, north of the watershed of Lake Baikal," Putin said.
The pipeline will carry 1.6 million barrels a day to Asia and revolutionise the pattern of Russia's energy supplies.
Putin's intervention flew in the face of months of advice from his top officials, including the state environmental watchdog, provoking cynicism that he was playing the "kind tsar" and had whipped up the uproar so as to defuse it.
Putin's order over-ruled the state environmental watchdog's recommendations which supported the Transneft plan to route the pipeline next to the lake, which contains more water than all North America's Great Lakes put together.
Many scientists had rejected the watchdog's decision, saying it was driven by business interests.
They said Baikal, which is so seismically active that it widens by 2 cm (an inch) a year, was too unstable to host any pipeline at all. Among other examples of its unique flora and fauna, it is home to a species of freshwater seal that has baffled scientists who cannot understand how it got there. Putin was due to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the city later on Wednesday when themes of energy security were likely to be high on the agenda.
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