Butinge gets one more customer

VILNIUS (BNS) - Lithuania's Butinge terminal has signed a two-year
oil export contract with Russia's Tyumen Oil Company, the daily
Lietuvos rytas reported Sept. 17.

A spokeswoman for the Mazeikiu Nafta oil refinery that owns the
recently built terminal in Butinge, has neither confirmed nor denied
the report.

According to the daily, Tyumen Oil Company plans to export 500,000
tons of oil via Butinge by the end of this year. The terminal's head,
Pyotr Ranko, was quoted as saying that Butinge's tariff of $5 per ton
was acceptable to the Russian company.

Latvia's Ventspils terminal has began applying a tariff of $4.90
after the rival terminal started operating in Lithuania. Tyumen Oil
Company exported some 600,000 tons of oil via Ventspils last year.

Asked if Butinge has the technical capacity to reload half a million
tons of oil during the remaining months of this year, Ranko said it
would depend on whether the terminal's construction was completed by
the Oct. 20 deadline.

Tyumen Oil Company is the second company to have signed a contract on
oil export via Butinge. The Russian company Yukos has been shipping
oil through the Lithuanian terminal since July. It plans to supply
2.5 million tons of crude annually.