05-06-08 LUKoil and ConocoPhillips opened their unique Varandey oil terminal on the Barents Sea coast. Meanwhile, the first oil is starting to flow from the big regional Yuzhno-Khylchuyuskoe field.
A tanker will in the course of the next five days leave the Varandey terminal on the Barents Sea coast with the first oil from the Yuzhno-Khylchuyuskoe, LUKoil Vice President Leonid Fedun confirms.

The Varandey terminal is unique in international oil industry. The 103 meter high terminal unit is places 23 km off the coast and linked with an underwater pipeline.
In his speech in connection with the opening of the terminal, regional Governor Valerii Potapenko, said the terminal significantly strengthens Russia as a world oil power, the regional administration reports.

The terminal has a 12 mm ton capacity and is linked with a pipeline to the Yuzhno-Khylchuyuskoe, a field which will produce an annual 7.5 mm tons of oil, and thus increase regional oil production with 50 %.
Operator Naryanmarneftegaz, a subsidiary of LUKoil and ConocoPhillips, is investing $ 90 bn (EUR 2.4 bn) in the project, which is unfolding over a 90 hectare area in the middle of the Nenets tundra.