VLADIVOSTOK, November 10 (RIA Novosti) – The first oil tanker docked on Saturday at the newly completed second pier in the port of Kozmino, the terminus of the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean Pipeline (ESPO).
“The second pier began operating on Saturday, boosting the port’s throughput to 30 million tons of oil a year,” a spokesman for port operator Spetsmornefteport Kozmino told RIA Novosti.
“The first tanker, the Singapore-flagged TH Sound, moored at the pier on November 10. It will take on 100,000 tons of export oil destined for Japan,” he said.
The second pier can handle tankers with deadweight of 80,000-120,000 tons.
The first pier entered operation in December 2009. It can handle tankers with deadweight up to 150,000 tons and has capacity to ship 15 million tons of oil a year.
Russian oil pipeline operator Transneft previously said that capacity at Kozmino would be raised to 50 million tons a year.
Kozmino is currently supplied with crude transported on ESPO’s first stage and then by rail. ESPO’s second stage, which will provide the port with a direct pipeline link to fields in Eastern Siberia, is slated for completion by the end of 2012.