Ukraine, Poland agree to reverse flow of key oil pipeline to bypass Russia in mid-2008

Dec 10 2007, 13:15
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - The leaders of Ukraine and Poland agreed Friday to reverse the flow of a key oil pipeline in western Ukraine in mid-2008, a move to improve regional energy security and reduce dependence on Russian crude.
The 670-kilometer (410-mile) Odessa-Brody pipeline is currently used to transport Russian oil southward for export via the Black Sea from the port of Odessa.
But President Viktor Yushchenko and his Polish counterpart Lech Kaczynski pledged to return to the pipeline's original design and begin shipping oil from Caspian Sea nations such as Azerbaijan northward from Odessa to Brody, near the Polish border, according to a statement on Yushchenko's Web site.
"Only such a straightforward option of using Odessa-Brody has a future. Any other options simply don't exist," Yushchenko said, according to the statement.
"I am convinced that this project will be implemented," Kaczynski was quoted as saying. "Naturally, it is in our Polish interests."
Yushchenko said that by mid-2008, oil will start moving northward in the pipeline to Brody, from where it will be transported further north by rail.
Under an agreement struck earlier this year by Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Azerbaijan and Georgia, the pipeline is to be extended 490 kilometers (300 miles) to the Polish port of Gdansk on the Baltic Sea.
Yushchenko predicted the extension could be built over the next two years, while Kaczynski predicted it could be finished in 2011-2012, according to the statement.
However, Alexander Dikusarov, spokesman for the state pipeline company Ukrtransnafta, said that while construction of the extension will begin in mid-2008, the flow of the oil will be reversed later.
The pipeline, built in 2001, has long been the subject of geopolitical jostling amid competition over control of export routes from the former Soviet Union. It remained largely idle amid political bickering over its use until 2004, when then-President Leonid Kuchma opened it for transport of Russian oil southward to Odessa for export.
The following year, Yushchenko, the new pro-Western president, decided to revert to the original plan for moving shipments from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan north and west from the Black Sea port.