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UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER URGES PROLONGATION OF ODESA-BRODY PIPELINE TO EUROPE. Viktor Yanukovych said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 25 that he is working to promote the completion of the Odesa-Brody pipeline to carry Caspian oil directly to the European Union, "The Wall Street Journal" reported on January 26. The pipeline, which was originally planned to send Caspian oil to Poland, has carried Russian oil in the opposite direction since 2004. Yanukovych said that the construction of pipeline links from Brody to Poland and Slovakia would bring an additional 12 million tons of oil a year to the EU from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia. According to Yanukovych, with the recent row over oil duties with Belarus in mind, Russia is also interested in sending its oil via the Odesa-Brody pipeline to Europe. "We believe Russia will decide quite soon how big their interest will be, in terms of the amount of oil they put in the pipeline," Yanukovych said, adding that Russian oil could be shipped by tankers from Novorossiisk on the Black Sea and fed into the pipeline in Odesa. JM