A new port is planned near the city of Nakhodka to serve as a terminus for a new multi-billion-dollar pipeline for Russian oil transported to Asia. It's not only the money that this project brings to the region.

A new multi-billion dollar pipeline is being planned and its terminus is a new port to be built just a few kilometres up the coastline from Nakhodka. Right now Kozmino Bay serves as a hot spot for local ice fishermen, but this is where the port will be built to serve as the end point for the massive East European Pacific Ocean pipeline.

Once completed, the pipeline, stretching over some 4,000 kilometres of land, will carry 300,000 tons of oil per day to a place where it will be loaded onto ships to make its way across the Sea of Japan.

ESPO, as the pipe is also known, is designed to transport oil from central Russia to energy-thirsty China, and potentially Japan and other countries along the Pacific Rim.

The first stage of the project, from Taishet near Irkutsk, to Skovoridino in the Amur region, is scheduled for completion by the end of this year.

The pipeline, and with it the potential establishment of a special economic zone, will add to the growing economic confidence the area has enjoyed since the end of the politically tumultuous 1990s.

Already more than 40 sea-liners link Nakhodka with the rest of the world. Cargo turnover at our four biggest ports reached 36 million tonnes in 2007, an estimated increase of 6% on the previous year, according to the local officials.

The biggest growth of all was at Vostochnyi or Eastern port, which is the largest in Russia.

VICS, a major international container shipping company that operates out of Vostochnyi, says they expect to see substantial growth here in the future and are planning to increase their investment in the region to $350 million.

The prospect of another pipeline to service customers in Asia is sure to add to the shipping loads as the region ponders the benefits it may reap.