Baltic Pipeline System News

Russia's June Urals crude exports from the Baltic Sea ports are expected to fall by 15 percent compared with May on a daily basis to 5.51 million tonnes, a preliminary loading plan seen by Reuters showed on Thursday. Crude loadings from the port of Primorsk were set to fall by 30 percent to 2.71 million tonnes due to planned works on Baltic pipeline system. Supplies from the neighbouring Ust-Luga port are set at 2.8 million tonnes, up 100,000 tonnes from the May loading plan.

Wilhelmsen Ships Service has opened an office on the port of Primorsk on the Russian Baltic Sea. The company started providing its broad range of ships agency services there in December 2009, supplying first MT Atalandi, which sailed on Dec. 16, and then MT Atlas Voyager, which sailed on Dec. 20. Since then Wilhelmsen Ships Service has consistently provided to other vessels visiting the port. Primorsk Oil terminal is the final point of the Baltic Pipeline System operated by the state entity Transneft. At present, up to 65 million tons of crude oil are shipped out of the port annually, with oil delivered from the Timano-Pechorskoye oil field as well as from various fields of West Siberia and the Urals. (www.wilhelmsen.com/shipsservice)

Russia has the seventh largest oil reserves in the world (6% of total), after 5 Middle East Countries (totalling 63%) and Venezuela (7%). The other Former Soviet Union (FSU) republics Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have together less than 2% of the total world reserves, estimated by BP to be some 1048 thousand million barrels. The Russian reserves are spread over a huge area: West Siberia, Volga-Urals, North Caucasus, the Caspian area, the Far East regions, and Eastern Siberia. The last region is estimated to be 90% unexplored, and also the Caspian area and the Far East regions were said by the Deputy Minister of Natural Resources, Ivan Glumov, to be to a great extent unexplored, according to INTERFAX.