Russia to pump it to Japan

[Greji]

Russia to build oil pipeline to Pacific, supply Japan
Reuters
Sunday, November 20, 2005; 9:52 PM

TOKYO (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed on Monday that Moscow plans to build a major oil pipeline from Siberia to the Pacific coast and said oil supplies would eventually flow to major consumer Japan.

"We plan to build the pipeline to the Pacific coast with eventual supplies to the Asia-Pacifc region including Japan," Putin said in a speech at a Russia-Japan investors forum in Tokyo.

Russia is building a 4,130-km (2,566 miles), $11.5 billion pipeline across Siberia that will pump 80 million tonnes of oil a year (1.6 million barrels per day) to the Pacific.

State pipeline monopoly Transneft is building it in two stages. It expects to finish the first stage at Skovorodino, far from the coast but close to China, in 2008.

Japan has been keen to win a promise that Russia would carry on construction to a port in the Pacific, while China wants the pipeline to head south into its industrial north. No date has been set for the second stage.

[Buraku]

Japan on Monday joined the United States in calling for a ceasefire in the South Ossetia conflict as Russia kept up attacks on Georgia AFP reports.



Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said he had discussed the crisis in a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"She said it is necessary to reach an immediate ceasefire," Komura told reporters.
"We agreed that Japan and the United States will cooperate in trying to stop the violence and to secure the territorial integrity of Georgia," he said.
Russia early Monday bombed targets in the suburbs of the Georgian capital Tblisi and said it had taken control of most of the Georgian rebel region of South Ossetia.
US President George W. Bush said Monday he had told Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the violence in Georgia was "unacceptable" and that Moscow's response was "disproportionate."
Japan, a close US ally, has a rocky relationship with Russia due to a row over four islands off Japan's northern coast seized by Soviet troops in 1945.