Russia’s Vostok Oil loads first crude for shipment via Northern Sea Route

Russia just turned on the taps for one of its most ambitious energy projects in decades. The Vostok Oil project loaded its first crude oil for shipment via the Northern Sea Route, following the inauguration of the main pipeline connecting Siberian oil fields to a brand-new marine terminal on the Arctic coast. Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the approximately 790-kilometer pipeline via video link on September 5, connecting the Vankor and Payakha oil fields to the newly constructed Sever Bay terminal on the Taymyr Peninsula. Rosneft, the state-controlled oil giant behind the project, has been building toward this moment for years, and CEO Igor Sechin confirmed the commencement of oil shipments. What Vostok Oil actually is The Vostok Oil project sits on a resource base of over 7 billion tons of low-sulfur crude, with sulfur content between 0.01% and 0.1%. The pipeline includes a 5.7 to 6 kilometer underwater crossing of the Yenisei River, buried up to 8 meters beneath the riverbed. The full pipeline system has a design capacity of 100 million tons per year. The initial phase of the Sever Bay marine terminal can handle 30 million tons of oil annually. Rosneft’s target is to hit...