Russia ramps up natural gas delivery to China via Power of Siberia mega pipeline

The customs service for Heihe in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province has said some 1.58 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas have been imported via the Power of Siberia pipeline over the past six months.

The 3,000km (1864 miles) cross-border pipeline started official deliveries of Russian natural gas to China in December. The so-called eastern route’s capacity is 61 billion cubic meters of gas per year, including 38 billion cubic meters for export.

According to Xinhua News Agency, the pipeline enters China via the border city of Heihe and runs through nine provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. It has also been connected with existing natural gas networks in China to allow the Russian natural gas supply to reach China's northeast, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Yangtze River Delta region.

Agreement on gas supplies via the Power of Siberia pipeline was reached in 2014, with Russia’s energy giant Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) inking a 30-year contract. It is Gazprom’s biggest-ever agreement and the first natural gas pipeline between Russia and China.

The Russian company plans to start with deliveries of 10 million cubic meters a day and aims to reach peak capacity by 2025. Gazprom plans to export five billion cubic meters of gas to China this year, 10 billion in 2021 and 15 billion in 2022.

Gas consumption in China, Asia’s biggest economy, has surged in recent years as the government pressures homes and factories to use it instead of coal to combat air pollution. Gazprom intends to become China’s biggest supplier, making up more than 25 percent of gas imports by 2035 as demand for natural gas grows.

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