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Dutch company VTTI said Thursday it has signed a deal with Russian investment group Summa Capital to invest around $1 billion in a new oil terminal in Rotterdam, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Russia hopes the new terminal, which will handle oil from the Primorsk port on the Baltic Sea coast, will pave the way for Urals to become a major crude oil benchmark, the shareholders said.

VTTI, a 50-50 venture between the world's largest independent energy trader Vitol SA and MISC Bhd., the shipping arm of Malaysian state oil firm Petronas, will take a 25% stake in the project, with Summa Capital, which is controlled by businessman Ziyavudin Magomedov, holding the rest.

Russian crude doesn't have an international trading platform and is priced at a discount to U.S. and U.K. oil benchmarks.

"We hope that by creating an open market, both a physical market and over time also a paper market, this discount may shrink," said Summa Capital's Luis Coimbra, who is heading the terminal project.

The terminal, which will begin operations in 2015, will more than double the volume of Russian crude deliveries to Rotterdam to between 50 million-55 million metric tons, from 25 million tons now. The Rotterdam port currently receives close to 100 million tons of oil a year.

The terminal, Tank Terminal Europoort West, or TEW, will be an open hub for Urals crude oil and will be open to any supplier or buyer, the two companies said in a joint statement.

The new terminal will have a total size of 55 hectares--a greenfield development located at the entrance of the port.

"This project will provide the logistical backbone for Russian producers to bring their oil to the market, [and] eventually allow Russia to develop Urals into a major crude oil benchmark," Coimbra said, adding that the project has received support from major Russian oil producers.

The terminal will have a storage capacity of 3 million cubic meters of oil and will primarily take crude and oil products from Primorsk.

VTTI is a storage and terminal business with capacity of nearly 6 million cubic meters worldwide. Summa Capital, a diversified private investment holding, earlier this year bought the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk together with state oil pipeline operator OAO Transneft (TRNFP.RS).

Primorsk handles more than 40% of Russian crude oil exports by sea, with state-controlled OAO Rosneft (ROSN.RS) producing around one third of that.