Company President Vagit Alekperov said after a meeting of the LUKoil board of directors, that TurgaiPetroleum, a joint venture owned by LUKoil and PetroKazakhstan, could be re-oriented to export oil to China.
"Unfortunately, the scheme through which oil would be transported from Russia to China via the new pipeline is not yet clear," he said.
The pipeline runs from the Atasu in the Central Asian republic to Alashankou in China, the company CEO said Tuesday.
State-run oil pipeline operator Transneft said earlier Tuesday it plans to transport 1.3 million metric tons of oil per year (26,000 bbl/d) to China via the Atasu-Alashankou pipeline, which came on-stream in December.
Chief executive Semyon Vainshtok said companies including Russian-British joint venture TNK-BP had already begun supplying the pipeline.
"Russian oil will be pumped in the amount of 1.3 million metric tons," Vainshtok said.
He added that the companies had already supplied 300,000 metric tons of oil via the pipeline, which is expected to start pumping crude to energy-hungry China in mid-2006.
The pipeline is the second part of the Kazakhstan-China inter-state oil transportation project and has a capacity of 10 million metric tons a year. It is expected to double its capacity in the future.
