Print

Mail

wiki links

China battles for pipeline

China has sent a high-powered delegation to Russia to lobby for a 2.5-billion-dollar oil pipeline that risks being abandoned over environmental concerns for a rival Japanese project, state media said yesterday.

The project would become the largest ever venture between China and Russia, and if it were to fail, it could hurt relations between the two countries, a Chinese-language newspaper reported.

The 2,400km pipeline, which would link Siberian oilfields to the northeast Chinese city of Daqing, has been thrown into limbo since early this month after an official Russian ecology commission criticized the oil pipeline because of the environmental risks involved.

A second proposed route would follow the path of the Baikur-Amur railway, which crosses the northern end of Lake Baikal, listed as a world heritage site by UNESCO.

Both routes have been criticized by the ecology commission as potentially disastrous or running counter to Russian laws on nature conservation.

However, there is more to Russia's vacillation than the environmental issue, the paper said, quoting analysts.

The Russian side may be attracted to a Japanese plan for a 4,000km pipeline that would originate in the same Siberian oil fields but bypass China on its way to Russia's Pacific port of Nakhodka, it reported.
This story has been viewed 1279 times.