Starodubsky Oil Loading Terminal to Be Started Up 1st of April.

The oil loading terminal at the station of Zhecha in the Starodubsky district is scheduled to start up beginning from the 1st of April. At least, this task was set to the specialists working at the project by RussNeft President Mikhail Gutseriev in the course of his inspection visit to the terminal which took place Thursday, 3 Feb. Along with Mr.Gutseriev the construction site was visited by a staff of builders, legal advisors and social sphere experts. The visit to the Bryansk region was not only for the sake of inspection. During his trip Mr. Gutseriev had a meeting with Governor Nikolay Denin and his Deputy on Construction Nikolay Simonenko, who also came to the site.
The agreement on the construction of the terminal was concluded between the Bryansk region’s administration and company RussNeft in September 2003. The total amount of the project approximates $90 million. Upon completion of the oil loading pipe rack crude oil will be transshipped from the pipeline into railway tank-cars to be further delivered to Byelorussia’s Mozyr and Novopolotsk Refineries. The pipe rack is designed to transship five million tons of crude oil with subsequent increase up to seven million tons per year.
The start-up of the terminal will place in jobs nearly eight hundred people at a time and the salaries are going to be the highest in the region ranging from eight to ten thousand rubles. Moreover the enterprise is going to be the major tax payer in the region. According to preliminary estimates the assessments in the budget of the Bryansk region will make up several hundreds of millions of rubles.
At the extempore press-conference that came about right at the site, both parties confirmed that all the arrangements made with the previous leadership of the region remained forceful. However the pressmen were still interested to know more about future trends of the cooperation. For instance, they asked if Russneft was going to build a refinery in the region. Mikhail
Gutseriev said that this project was directly dependent on the financial possibilities of the company. According to preliminary estimates nearly $800-900 million would be required as well as support on the part of the government to attend to such grand project. At that it should be noted the instructions to develop the project documentation had been given long ago. Mikhail Gutseriev also said if the plan came off, 1.5 to 2 thousand people would have jobs.
All the social aspects of the project are to be further developed. RussNeft social projects in the Bryansk region are first of all associated with the Beloberezhsky Children’s Health Center. In September last year the first stage of the health center consisting of dwelling and administrative buildings was completed. At that point the company had already invested nearly $1.5 million in the health center. As Mr.Gutseriev said before, the second stage plans provided for construction of a sports complex with gyms and a swimming pool preliminary estimated as costing 30-40 million rubles, a dwelling house for the attending personnel and some more things. After the construction is completed the company will continue to back the health center.