Russia reduced its forecast Friday for its oil shipment via railway to China to 7 million tons for 2005 from the earlier estimate of 10 million tons.

"We plan to transport about 7 million tons in 2005 due to limitations in loading capacity," an official of Russian Railways, the country's railway monopoly, told the Interfax news agency.

Russia's largest oil producer, Lukoil, stopped transporting oil to China in May due to the limitation, the unidentified official said.

State-owned oil company Rosneft has applied to transport 508, 000 tons of oil and Yukos 200,000 tons to China in August. Sibneft has not applied to transport oil to China through Kazakhstan, the official said. Rosneft plans to transport about 8.8 million tons of oil to China in 2006.

"After the launch of an oil loading platform at the Uyar station, we will be able to transport about 10-15 million tons of oil to China every year," he said.

Source: Xinhua