Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean oil pipeline

Later, in 1996, on the initiative of the Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, Russia and China signed an energy agreement including plans for the ESPO pipeline.

The project involved the building of a pipeline from Angarsk, where Yukos operated a refinery, to Daqing in northern China.

[3] At the same time, Transneft proposed an alternative project to pipe oil from Taishet in Irkutsk Oblast to the Far East port Kozmino near Nakhodka.

[4] In May 2003, the Russian Government decided to combine these projects and that Transneft would be in charge of the pipeline, while Yukos would supply the oil.

[4] On 31 December 2004, the Russian government approved the construction of the pipeline from Taishet in East Siberia to Perevoznaya, Primorsky Krai, in the Pacific region.

[7] On 4 October 2008, the section between Taishet and Talakan was launched in a reverse to pump oil from Surgutneftegas-owned Alinsky deposit.

[10][13] The 64 kilometres (40 mi) long section from Skovorodino to the Amur River on Russia-China border was built by Transneft and the 992 kilometres (616 mi) long section from Russia-China border to Daqing was built by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

[16] Because of protests of environmental organizations, the initial pipeline route was moved 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of Lake Baikal.

[20] The pipeline consist of 32 pumping stations, including 13 with tank farms with a total capacity of 2.67 million cubic metres (94×10^6 cu ft).

In November 2010, one of the minor shareholders of Transneft, Alexey Navalny, accused the company management of engaging in a US$4 billion embezzlement during the construction of the pipeline.