On this ground Greenpeace Russia, as one of the initiators of
the public environmental impact assessment, addressed the
Prosecutor's office with a demand to take measures toward Transneft
company.
The committed offences can only be eliminated by means of the
second public hearings. All demands and comments of members of the
public must be taken into consideration. This means that the
procedure of the state environmental impact assessment must be
suspended until the above mentioned offences are eliminated.
"The project of the pipeline is tremendous: 4188 kilometres are
laid out through the permafrost, through the territory with the
seismic activity of up to 11 magnitude, with complex geographical,
geological and hydrological conditions. - says Roman Vazhenkov,
Greenpeace Russia Baikal campaign coordinator. - And if there are
so many offences made during its planning, what's going to happen
during the construction"?
The oil pipeline is going to cross the largest river of the
Baikal basin - Verkhnya Angara River. A rupture of the pipeline and
pollution of this river will eventually result in the pollution of
the Baikal Lake itself. The route is also going to cross the Amur
River, upstream of the Khbarovsk - the place of the only water
intake for a city with a population of million people. It also
crosses preserves, a number of reserved territories; it threatens
the last remaining Far Eastern leopards. According to some
scientists, the Perevoznaya bay (the destination of the oil
transportation in the Russian territory) is "the worst possible
place for the terminal".
In order to inform the company's employees and the public about
offences commited by Transneft, on November 11, 2004, Greenpeace is
going to carry out a demonstration near the headquarters of
Transneft in Moscow.
Additional information
The chronology of the project:
2001. Two companies "Transneft" and UKOS plan the construction
of the oil pipeline to China or the Far East. Soon after that UKOS
quits the project because of problems with authorities.
2003, autumn. Transneft fails to obtain a positive resolution of
the state environmental impact assessment concerning the project of
the oil pipeline "Angarsk-Nakhodka" (the pipeline is supposed to
cross the territory of the World Natural Heritage Site "Lake
Baikal"). Nevertheless, Transneft keeps on working on its
project.
2003, spring. The Ministry of Natural Resources of the RF
approves a new project of the route on the condition on excluding
Baikal. Transneft refuses the project and develops a new one.
According to it, the pipeline starts in Taishet and finished at the
Perevoznaya bay. The project provides for a considerable length of
the pipeline (4188 km), large carrying capacity of the system and,
thus, considerable expenses (more than 14 billion USD). To compare:
the oil pipeline in Alaska (Transalaska oil pipeline) with more
than tree times less length (1270) cost USD 22 billion USD.
The scope of the project:
Because of the fast economic development and the growth of the
population of Asian countries on the Pacific coast, the general
need of the region for energy annually grows 14% approximately.
This stimulates the interest of Russian oil companies to the
construction of oil pipeline from the Western Siberia (where there
are main oil fields) to the Pacific Ocean. This is the oil pipeline
that Transneft company is projecting.
The pipeline will cross about 50 large and small rivers, tens of
motor and railways, as well as seismically active areas, where
geological breaks are perpendicular to each other. Seismic activity
of up to 10-11 magnitude, passages through high mountain ranges,
extreme climate and ecological geographical conditions pose a
serious threat to construction, use of the pipeline and the
provision of its safety.
The cost of the project:
Not long ago Vladimir Putin held a meeting devoted to the
development of oil pipe transportation. It revealed that the
construction of the pipeline is stopped by at least two things. The
first is the budget shortage. The Ministry of Industry and Energy
proposed to allot some money from the stabilization fund for the
construction (which is especially cynical at the background of the
shortage of money in some regions of Russia, necessary for the
timely payment of salaries that have not been paid for 6 months. At
the moment it's impossible to calculate the exact sum of money
necessary for the construction of such a long pipeline. At public
hearings in regions, where the route will be organized the sum of
14 billion dollars was stated. At October meeting with the
President it was already more than 16 billion dollars. After that
Transneft Vice President Sergei Grigoriev reduced the price down to
11billion dollars. And this is the money only to put a pipeline
from Taishet to Perevoznaya.
The second obstacle is the lack of developed stocks of energy
resources: so far the future pipeline has sufficient developed
stocks for only minimum necessary volume of transporting 30 million
tons of oil a year, while "Transneft" state company, that actively
lobbies the eastern project, has many times declared that the power
capacity of the future pipe will be 80 million tons a year. This
means that the term of payback of the pipeline is going to
grow.