In response to journalists’ questions, the Mr Yushchenko said that the construction of the oil pipeline between Odessa (on the Black Sea) and Brody (on Ukraine’s western border with Poland) has been “a unique project for the past few years.”
“This project can be activated if all its components, including transportation to Novorossiisk (the Russian port on the western coast of the Black Sea) function properly,” he said. Ukraine financed 58% of the cost of the project, but he continued: “I could not understand how the finished oil pipeline could stand idly without pumping oil in either direction.” According to Mr Yushchenko, the question of using this pipeline in the reverse direction has been “much too politicized. This is a temporary agreement which meets Ukraine’s interests today,” Mr Yushchenko said, regarding the recently-signed agreement on the reversing of the Odessa-Brody pipeline. “But if tomorrow our interests change and the need appears to return to the initial project, we shall use it as it was initially designed.”
Ukraine completed the construction of the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline at the end of 2001. The pipeline was designed to pump 14 million tons/yr of oil to Europe, bypassing the Bosporous Straits, but it was not used because Kiev could not find raw material suppliers. Russian companies interested in increasing their oil exports to the European market proposed that Ukraine should use the oil pipeline in a reverse direction, from Brody to Odessa. At first, the Ukrainian authorities declined this proposal. However, on 5 July, 2004, the Ukrainian government made the decision to remove limits on transporting oil along the Odessa-Brody pipeline exclusively in one direction.
Following this, on 8 July, the supervisory council of the Ukrainian oil transportation company, Ukrtransnafta, authorized the company’s board to conclude contracts with Russian-British TNK-BP on filling the Odessa-Brody pipeline. The supervisory council approved the signing of the credit agreement, which provided for an annual output of up to 9million tons of oil through the pipeline in a reverse regime, following the principle: “either transport or pay.