What is the Siberia-Pacific Pipeline?
The Siberia-Pacific Pipeline goes by a few names, including VSTO (“Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean”), Transneft, and Taishet – Perevoznaya. If built, it would be about 2,565 miles (4,130 kilometers) long and cost more than USD $15 billion. More than three times longer than the Alaska pipeline, it is surrounded by controversy. This is one in a series of pipelines planned to export resources out of the fragile Baikal region to East Asia. Previously, a BP gas pipeline was planned to go south of Lake Baikal (from Kovykta) through the Tunka Valley — and its National Park — to China. While this was still in development, a Yukos oil pipeline was planned to go the same route, and was stopped by environmental activists. In 2002, a plan for another pipeline, this one by Transneft and going north of Lake Baikal, failed to pass a state environmental impact assessment because it was too close to the lake; Transneft moved it further north, to a safer distance from the lake, but into a high seismic z
