Baltic pipeline system

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The Baltic Pipeline System (BPS) is one of the Russian oil company Transneft -operated pipeline system for oil. The Baltic pipeline system transports crude oil from the Timan-Pechora oil field or the entire Timan-Pechora basin , as well as from western Siberia , the Urals , the Volga region and Kazakhstan to the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland . From there it can be transported by ship to Western Europe. The name does not refer to the Baltic states , but to the Russian name "Baltic Sea" for the Baltic Sea .

The Baltic pipeline system consists of a pipeline from Yaroslavl to Primorsk , a pumping station in Kirishi and an oil loading port in Primorsk. Currently (as of 2006) up to 4 oil tankers can be loaded there at the same time. A total of 17 refineries were also built as part of the project .

The planning dates back to 1997, construction began in 2000. The pipeline went into operation on December 27, 2001 with a transport capacity of 12 million tons of oil per year. This was continuously increased by expansion measures in the following years: over 30 million t in 2003, 42 million t in February 2004 and 50 million t in December 2005; since March 2006 it has been 65 million t per year.

The official background to the construction was that it would save transit fees, which had to be paid in the now independent states of Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus after the collapse of the Soviet Union . However, geopolitical reasons may also have played a role, since the construction meant that the passage of Russian oil through foreign territory was no longer necessary as it was before. Since the end of 2002 , the Latvian oil loading port of Ventspils has no longer been supplied via the pipeline that runs there, but only by rail . In the context of the conflict over the conditions for the passage of Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline between Russia and Belarus around the turn of the year 2006/2007, considerations also arose to secure the supply of crude oil to Western Europe through increased use of the port of Primorsk as a loading station.

The construction of the pipeline was heavily criticized by environmentalists, as the Gulf of Finland is an ecologically very sensitive area. The increase in tanker traffic in the Baltic Sea also increases the risk of a tanker collision in the dangerous and already heavily trafficked Kadetrinne south of the Danish island of Falster . In addition, the Beryosovye Ostrowa bird sanctuary, which falls under the Ramsar Convention , is in the immediate vicinity of the Primorsk port .

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