BP's diesel pipeline damage

MOSCOW: A diesel pipeline with an annual capacity of 2 million tonnes per year linked to Russian oil firm TNK-BP's Ryazan refinery was halted on Monday after being damaged by digging works, the pipeline operator said.

A spokesman for Transnefteproduct, a subsidiary of oil pipeline operator Transneft, told Reuters on Monday that the company will take about a day to restart the pipeline.

"There is no interruption to the loading schedule," Ilya Arkhipov said. The link is a part of a trunk pipeline which leads to the port of Primorsk on the Baltic Sea.

A spokesman for the refinery said the plant is working according to its regular schedule and that it can use storage facilities to compensate for the pipeline stoppage.

Transnefteproduct said in a statement that more than 100 tonnes of diesel spilled off from the pipeline while a power cable was being laid along the link some 200 kilometres (125 miles) south-east of Moscow.

Copyright Reuters, 2011