MOSCOW, Oct. 12 - The political component of the project to build the Odessa-Brody-Gdansk oil pipeline outweighs the economic component, Russian officials said.

A pipeline project should only begin after a definite amount of oil that must be delivered to a specific market becomes available. Odessa-Brody-Gdansk "was built from the very first without any guaranteed oil supplies," Transneft Vice President Sergei Grigoriev told Interfax. Only after receiving guarantees on supplies from producers can the economic viability of the project be determined, he said.