KRAKOW, Poland, May 11 Poland and six former Soviet countries signed a deal to extend the Odessa-Brody pipeline and send energy supplies to Europe bypassing Russia.
The presidents of Poland, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania and Ukraine, and the Kazakh deputy energy minister, meeting in Krakow, Poland, Friday, signed a resolution declaring joint energy security planning as a major policy decision, RIA Novosti reports.
The Odessa-Brody pipeline, which sends mostly Russian oil to the Black Sea port, will extend to the port of Gdansk in Poland and the Plock refinery.
The countries will also join forces to send oil and gas from Central Asia to Central Europe via the Caucuses outside Russia.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said the energy summit was not an effort to exclude any other countries but for mutual energy security.
Ilham Aliyev, the Azeri president, said it showed "the growing role of regional cooperation." "The energy summit was a great idea," said Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, "a promising start, a first step." The next regional energy summit will take place in Vilnius, Lithuania, in October.
Copyright 2007 by UPI
