With a carrying capacity of 45 million tons of crude a year, the pipeline will allow the crude produced by TNK-BP, OAO Gazprom Neft, OAO Lukoil and OAO Novatek to flow to Asia or Europe, connecting untapped oil assets in Arctic Siberia to the main pipeline grid, according to Bloomberg.
The first phase of the pipeline is expected to be complete by the end of 2014 and the second by the end of 2015, while the third in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Transneft will initially allocate its own cash to fund 30% of the project cost and use existing credit lines for the remaining.
