Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia's first oil pipeline to Asia must be completed without delay, underlining Russia's energy clout just hours before European Union leaders meet to discuss Georgia.
Russian state-owned news agency RIA said Putin had signed a government order "on speeding the building of phases of the Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean (pipeline) and not allowing delays," while on a visit to the Far East.
He was speaking in Kozmino, a giant oil terminal being built on the Pacific coast to take the oil from the pipeline, which is being built by Transneft.
Russia, the world's No. 2 oil producer, is fighting back at criticism from the United States and European states for recognising Georgia's two breakaway regions as independent and sending troops deep into the tiny ex-Soviet nation.
EU heads of state are set to meet on Monday at an emergency summit to discuss what to do about Russia, whose energy reserves give the Kremlin significant leverage over major EU economies.
Russia's Asian pipeline, which will stretch from Eastern Siberia for thousands of kilometres (miles) to the Pacific coast, has been showcased by the Kremlin as a way to diversify Moscow's dependence on energy sales to the European Union.
But the two-stage pipeline has been delayed by a year and building costs have soared as constructors grapple with the wilds of Eastern Siberia, where temperatures regularly fall to 50 degrees Celsius below zero and infrastructure is non-existent.
PERSONAL CHARGE:
Putin, who stepped down as president in May after eight years as Kremlin chief, is in personal charge of the pipeline project and while president he was instrumental in building closer ties with China.
The latest launch date for the first part of the pipeline has been set for late 2009. The 2,700-km (1,680-mile) pipeline is being built from Taishet in Eastern Siberia's Irkutsk region to Skovorodino on the Amur region near the Chinese border. It will cost more than $12 billion.
About the distance between London and Istanbul, the Taishet-Skovorodino part of the pipeline will have a capacity of 30 million tonnes per year (600,000 barrels per day).
The oil terminal at Kozmino is being built where crude will be transported by rail from Skovorodino until a second section of pipeline can be built stretching to the coast. That second section is likely to cost at least another $12 billion, Russian officials have said..
The project is a key part of Russia's aim to boost sagging oil production and diversify oil supplies to the booming economies of Asia, where China is hungry for oil to drive its economic transformation. State major Rosneft, and Russian oil firms TNK-BP and Surgutneftegas, are seen as the main suppliers of the pipeline from the largely untapped fields of East Siberia.