Vostok Oil Pipeline to Increase Traffic on the NSR

Russian oil giant Rosneft announced the start of construction of a pipeline for its major project in the Russian Arctic, Vostok Oil. The pipeline will be used to deliver oil from the Vankor and Payakha oil field clusters to the Bukhta Sever port to be located in the Kara Sea at the mouth of the Yenisei River. The new pipeline will be 770 kilometers long.

Crude oil is supposed to be stored in the port’s reservoir tanks and then loaded on ice-class tankers capable of independent navigation in the Arctic tasked with delivering it to customers in Europe and Asia via the Northern Sea Route (NSR).

The company claims that the project’s light (40°API) and low-sulphur (<0.05%) oil has a premium quality that surpasses Brent and ESPO crude grades. This will give the oil giant a competitive edge in the world fuel market. In addition, owing to its low sulphur content, fuels based on this oil may be regarded as environmentally friendly ones.

Launching the construction works of the pipeline is crucial in terms of the prospects of the NSR. Rosneft believes that by 2024, Vostok Oil will be able to export up to 30 million metric tons of crude oil from the Vankor and Payakha clusters. This will help considerably increase the amount of freight handled by Russia’s key Arctic waterway and eventually achieve the target of transporting 80 million tons of cargo per year set by the Presidential Decree back in 2018.