Imperial Oil on Tuesday affirmed the oil industry’s 130-year-old fixation with Russia with an oil strike and the declaration of a $245-million pipeline project for wells expected to come on stream.

The Vodorazdelnaya-3 well in Block 86 is being tested after striking through 28.3 metres of hydrocarbon-heavy rock in the Tyuman reservoir, 2,768 metres down.

Four other Siberian wells are other either being drilled for readying for drilling, and seismic is being shot over a fifth.

Meanwhile, plans are “advancing rapidly” toward a third Imperial pipeline linking Block 80 on the east side of the Ob to the Transneft system with tie-in at Imperial’s custody transfer station at Zavyalova. “Custody transfer stations” linking Imperial’s two pipelines to the Transneft system are being readied, and oil will flow next month into the long Maiskoye-Festivalnoye-Luganetskoye pipeline.

The construction work has been awarded to a local Tomsk Contractor “pursuant to a competitive tender and final terms of the contract are being negotiated”, a statement said. Pipeline, too, will come from a Russian supplier “pursuant to a similar competitive tender”.

The No. 3 pipeline is expected to be 152 kilometres when it opens in the summer of 2008.