China link guarantees Russia oil exports

By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Tanya Mosolova

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia sees its new oil link to China as a way of guaranteeing its exports in the face of possible hostility from the EU, the head of Russia's pipeline monopoly said on Wednesday.

Nikolai Tokarev, the president of Transneft, also told the Reuters Russia Investment Summit that the Ukrainian ports of Odessa and Yuzhny, as well as the Polish port of Gdansk, could stop receiving crude from 2012 when Russia finished a new link to the Baltic Sea, known as BTS-2.

The United States and the European Union have heavily criticized Russia over its military action in Georgia, the first time Moscow used troops outside its borders since the end of the Soviet Union. Poland and Ukraine have called on the EU to cut dependence on Russian energy.

Tokarev, a close ally of Russia's former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, from his KGB days, said a $14 billion new oil pipeline from Russia's Siberian oilfields to China would give Moscow more security about its exports.

RUSSIA CAN FEEL SAFER

"It is an expensive pipeline but...can allow Russia to feel safer", he said.

Tokarev referred to a meeting of EU foreign ministers this month, which froze cooperation talks with Russia in protest at its action in Georgia but stopped short of tougher measures.

"We all remember what happened at the EU summit... If we didn't have the Eastern pipeline and the Baltic pipeline, I'm sure their decisions would have been much tougher," he said.