YUKOS affiliate signs pact for new pipeline

Austria's OMV company and Slovakia's Transpetrol, 49% of whose stock belongs to YUKOS, have agreed to create a joint enterprise to build and operate an oil pipeline between Bratislava (Slovakia) and OMV's refinery in Schwechat (Austria). As relayed yesterday to Rosbalt at the YUKOS press service, construction of the 60-kilometer-long pipeline with a capacity of 3.6 million tonnes a year is to begin toward the end of 2004. Cost is estimated at Euro 28 million.

The sides also signed a contract under which YUKOS will deliver 2 million tonnes of oil through the pipeline yearly for 10 years. Thus, OMV's Schwechat refinery will receive direct shipments of Russian oil beyond what it already receives through the Adria-Vienna pipeline. The deliveries, expected to begin in January 2006, will supply 20% of the refinery's capacity. With additional pumping stations, pipeline capacity can be raised to 5 million tonnes a year.

OMV is Austria's largest share-traded industrial company, with sales in 2002 of Euro 7.08 billion, capitalization of Euro 2.8 billion and more than 5,800 employees. OMV is a processor and marketer in 12 countries and explores and extracts in 16 countries.

Transpetrol is Slovakia's only domestic and international transporter of oil using its own network of pipelines and storage facilities. Its 1,032 kilometers of pipeline have a capacity of 21 million tonnes a year. The company moved some 9.5 million tonnes of oil in 2002.

YUKOS, founded April 15, 1993, comprises the oil-producing enterprise Yuganskneftegaz in the Khanti-Mansisk Autonomous Region, the Samaraneftegaz complex, Eastern Oil Company, Eastern Siberian Oil and Gas Company and Angarsk Petrochemical Company. Controlling interest in YUKOS is held by MENATEP Limited through two subsidiaries: Hulley Enterprises Limited (60.24%) and Yukos Universal Limited (0.54%).

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