73 tankers from Varandey

Located 22 kilometres offshore, Lukoil’s ice-resistant export terminal in the eastern part of the Barents Sea has operated for one year.

The terminal opened in June last year. So far, the three special designed ice-class oil-tankers operated by Sovkomflot have made 73 journeys with crude oil. The oil comes from the onshore Yuzhno Khylchuyu field located in Timan-Pechora area in Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Lukoil reports on their website.

Yuzhno Khylchuyu field is operated by the Lukoil owned Naryanmarneftegaz and ConocoPhillips in Joint Venture. The design oil production level in the field is expected to reach an annual level of 7.5 million tons during the first full-production year 2009.

The Varandey terminal is located in the coastal area of the eastern Barents Sea. The sea is ice-covered for almost eight months a year.

Lukoil says the terminal’s overall annual throughput is 12 million tons of crude (240,000 barrels/day). Lukoil is Russia’s biggest private owned oil company.

From Varandey, the 70,000 tons DWT ice-breaking tankers mainly sail to the Kola Bay where the oil is reloaded into the floating storage tanker Belokamenka. Other bigger tankers then takes the oil to the world marked by sailing from Murmansk and around the northern coast of Norway.

Earlier in June, BarentsObserver.com reported that the Norwegian government has decided to open up for year-around ship-to-ship reloading of oil in the fjord outside Kirkenes, near the border to Russia. The oil supposed to be reloaded outside Kirkenes will come from the terminals in the eastern part of the Barents Sea and onshore terminals in the White Sea area.

Some 12 million tons of oil was shipped from northern Russia around the northern coast of Norway in 2008.

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