Putin orders diversion of oil pipeline at Lake Baikal (Roundup)

Apr 26, 2006, 20:25 GMT

Moscow - Unexpectedly siding with Russia's ecologists, President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered the rerouting of a major Siberian oil pipeline away from Lake Baikal to avoid polluting the unique fresh water source.

The planned 4,100-kilometre line to the Pacific that will also branch off to China should be moved from its current path 800 metres from the lake to a distance of at least 40 kilometres, Putin said.

'If there is even a tiny chance of Baikal becoming polluted, then we, thinking about generations to come, must do everything to not just minimize but to exclude it,' the Kremlin chief told energy officials in the Siberian city of Tomsk.

Russian scientists and ecologists opposed the original plans because of seismic activity in the area and because the line would cross numerous tributaries into the lake.

But the state pipeline company Transneft deemed alternate routes for the 11.5-billion dollar project too expensive because it would mean laying the line across highland.

On Monday Transneft head Semyon Vainstok gave assurances that extra thick piping and modern monitoring systems would ensure safety.

The turn-around Wednesday came after protests last weekend in several Russian cities.

Greenpeace, which ran a major campaign to protect Baikal, welcomed the decision as 'magnificent and ecologically correct.'

Affectionately known as the Pearl of Siberia, Baikal holds as much water as all of North America's Great Lakes combined - an estimated 23,000 cubic kilometres, or about 20 per cent of the planet's fresh water. It is 636 kilometres long and 80 kilometres wide, and is also the deepest lake in the world at 1,637 metres.

Putin said Russia was forced to build its first pipeline to the East in view of curbs placed on its energy exports to the West.

'Regardless of high demand for energy, people are trying to hem us in to the north, west and south,' he said. 'We often run into methods of unfair competition on world markets.'

The first phase of the pipeline will run for 2,400 kilometres from the eastern Siberian town of Taishet to Skovorodino near the Chinese border. After the section becomes operative by 2008, a spur line will added to the Chinese city of Datsin.

The main line will continue another 1,700 kilometres to the Pacific coast near Vladivostok to enable shipment to the United States. The last stretch is expected to be complete by 2015.