One of the world’s longest gas pipelines, the Power of Siberia, which aims to deliver Russian natural gas to China, is nearly 85 percent complete.
According to the Russian energy giant Gazprom, the section from the Chayandinskoye field (Yakutia) to the border with China is already built. The second tunnel of the underwater crossing of the pipeline through the Amur River is also complete, it said.
The Power of Siberia pipeline which is also called the “Eastern Route” is one of the major projects between Russia and China. Analysts say it could help Russia become one of China's main providers of natural gas as demand in the country increases.
The 3,000km pipeline will be longer than the distance between Moscow and London. Deliveries should begin in late 2019. The deal on the eastern route took more than a decade to negotiate. Last July, Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) inked an agreement to start gas deliveries via the route.
In May 2014, the two companies signed a $400-billion 30-year framework to deliver 38 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to China annually. In 2017, Gazprom invested 158.8 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) in the project. This year it plans to invest another 218 billion rubles ($3.47 billion).
Moscow and Beijing plan to build another pipeline – Power of Siberia 2 or the Western Route – that will deliver another 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia to China. According to the head of Gazprom, Aleksey Miller, China’s growing gas consumption, which was more than 200 billion cubic meters in 2016, will soon reach 300 billion cubic meters.
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