"As soon as we turn towards China, South Korea, Australia, Japan, this will take away part of the oil from our European colleagues," Semyon Vainshtok, head of the state-owned pipeline company Transneft, told the liberal Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily in an interview.

"We have overfed Europe with oil" -- a situation that meant Russia could only sell to European markets at a reduced price, Vainshtok added.

News of the start of preliminary work on the pipeline was given by the governor of the Irkutsk region Alexander Tishanin.

The pipeline will pass within 800 metres (yards) of Lake Baikal and environmentalists have expressed alarm about the effects of any spill, the more so since the region is prone to earthquakes.

Some 1,600 wagonloads of tubes have already been sent to the Baikal area, Tishanin said, according to the Itar-Tass news agency.

They are being unloaded at Taishet in Siberia, at the head of the pipeline, east of Krasnoyarsk, north of Mongolia and west of Lake Baikal.

"Further east, closer to Baikal we don't see such activity," said Tishanin who has frequently criticised the proximity of the pipeline to the lake, the largest body of fresh water in the world.

Vainshtok said the construction of the 4,000-kilometre (2,485-mile) pipeline would begin later this month.

The total cost of the project, intended to allow deliveries overland to China as well as shipment to other countries from Russia's Pacific coast, would be 6.5 billion dollars (5.3 billion euros), the newspaper said.

Moscow is increasingly looking to Asian markets, such as energy-hungry China and Japan, for lucrative export deals.

Last month, Russia signed a deal to build two gas pipelines to China with a combined capacity of up to 80 billion cubic meters (2.8 trillion cubic feet) per year.

Russia was expecting a grant from China to build a spur off the main trunk line from Skovorodino to the Chinese border and was trying to secure a two billion dollar loan for the main project from a consortium of Western banks, Vainshtok said.

The cost of pumping oil through the pipeline would be 38.8 dollars per ton, he added, comparing this to the 96 dollars currently charged by Russia's rail system for deliveries to China.

Vainshtok also defended the project against charges that it presented a major risk for Lake Baikal.

"We will guarantee unprecedented measures of protection against the possible leakage of oil into the lake," he said.

A marine rescue team would be set up and the pipeline would be three times thicker than average and made from a special material that will make it both resistant and flexible, he added.

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