No guarantees on China deliveries past first quarter

Russia's Lukoil, which assumed part of the role the embattled Yukos played supplying crude oil to China, said it would not commit to shipping oil beyond Q1 2005 if the company can make more money shipping elsewhere, Reuters reported. "If it is five cents more profitable to ship crude to another destination we will ship it to the other destination," Chief Executive Vagit Alekperov told a media scrum. The current schedule calls for shipping 400,000 tonnes of crude to China by rail in the first quarter, 240,000 of that tonnage in January.