Baltic States – CIS, Energy, Latvia, Oil, Port, Transport

Transneft representatives said that it would be important to fully utilize Russia's port infrastructure. The "Druzhba" pipeline used to serve as a window to Europe, nevertheless, there are new opportunities now – the ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk. Oil flow has shifted. "The same is happening with oil products, we are improving our own ports," the company's representative said.

According to the minutes of the meeting obtained "Vedomosti", the participants in the meeting – representatives of Surgutneftegaz, Rosneft, Lukoil, Bashneft and Gazprom neft – supported the motion to increase the transshipment amounts via Russian ports.

Rosneft representative said his company was ready to transship more oil via Novorossiysk and Primorsk ports, provided that there are the necessary technical and infrastructure conditions for this. Gazprom neft, on the other hand, is ready to "fully re-orient its oil product export volumes to Primorsk, Ust-Luga, and Saint Petersburg ports," adding though that this required changes in Russian railroad company and port transshipment rates.

During the past several years, port capacities have increased significantly, but now it is infrastructure problems that need to be solved. For instance, Russia has been unable to construct a railroad to the Primorsk port for a long time now, Raiffeisenbank analyst says.

In the first half of the year, the price for transporting one ton of diesel fuel from Rosneft Ryazan oil refinery to Ventspils was RUB 1,800 per ton, but to Primorsk – RUB 1,920 per ton.