BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 5 (UPI) -- A top Polish official said Thursday at a Caspian oil conference in Azerbaijan his country favored expanding the Odessa-Brody pipeline in his country.
Wojciech Zajaczkowski, the top adviser to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, said by 2009 Poland expects to launch a feasibility study into expanding the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline to the Plock refinery in central Poland and the port city of Gdansk, the reporting agency Azerbaijan Business Center said.
"This project will allow oil transportation from the Caspian to Baltic region. The project is of significance for Poland in terms of realization of the program (to be completed by 2019) aimed at diversifying routes of energy product supplies," Zajaczkowski said.
Zajaczkowski made his comments on the second day of an international conference on oil and gas supplies in the Caspian region inaugurated in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku.
The current Odessa-Brody line is a 419-mile pipeline operated by the Ukrainian firm Ukrtransnafta. Other investors include the State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic and the international pipeline company Sarmatia.
The European Union contributed $3.1 million to Sarmatia to examine the expansion of the Odessa-Brody line to Poland.
