One of the longest gas pipelines in the world - the Power of Siberia - created to bring Russian natural gas to China has been 93% completed.
According to Gazprom, the main Russian energy producer, 119 operational gas wells in the Chayandinskoye camp in Yakutia have been completed, more than 2.000 km of pipelines have been welded and laid from Yakutia to the Russian-Chinese border, while the realization of the underwater stretch that crosses the Amur river is complete at 78%.
This is a huge pipeline that will be able to transport up to 61 billion cubic meters of gas per year. But what changes the world energy balance is its path: the gas pipeline will be able to unify Russia's two main pipeline networks, the western and the eastern one.
“Eastern Route”, this is the name given to the project, is one of the main projects between Russia and China. The pipeline could help Russia become a major supplier of China's natural gas as demand in the country increases.
Deliveries are expected to begin at the end of 2019. The "eastern route" agreement required ten-year negotiations and only last July, Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed an agreement to begin deliveries of gas along the path.
Moscow and Beijing plan to build another pipeline: the Power of Siberia 2 or the “Western Route”, which will supply another 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia to China. According to forecasts made by Aleksey Miller, director of Gazprom, China's growing gas consumption, which in 2016 exceeded 200 billion cubic meters, will soon reach 300 billion cubic meters.