Russia may cut Baltics from oil route

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, July 5 (UPI) -- Russia may stop using ports in the Baltic states by 2015 to export oil and instead use a new $3.3 billion pipeline, a government official said.

Currently, Russia exports roughly 80 percent of its oil products through ports in the Baltic states, RIA Novosti reported Saturday.

"By 2015 we will have sufficient energy supplies transit capacity at our domestic ports," Russian Transportation Minister Igor Levitin said at a government meeting in St. Petersburg.

Russia is building a sea merchant port at Ust-Luga in the Gulf of Finland outside St. Petersburg for the transit of oil and gas from both Russia's oil-rich regions and Kazakhstan to Europe via the Baltic Pipeline System-2 project, the news service reported.

By 2015, the Ust-Luga port is expected to reach an annual transit capacity of up to 130 million tons of oil and oil derivatives.