Deputies of Russia’s State Duma (lower house of Parliament) ratified the agreement on natural gas supplies to China via western route, Tass reported on Monday.
The plan is to launch supplies of natural gas from the Chayandinskoye and Kovyktinskoye natural gas fields in 2019 of up to five billion cubic meters annually with further boost of supplies to 38 billion cubic meters of gas by 2024.
The agreement between the Russian and the Chinese governments on Russia’s natural gas supplies to China via the western route was singed in Moscow in 13 October 2014. The agreement was commencement provision for the sale and purchase western route natural gas contract inked on 21 May 2014 by Russia’s Gazprom and China’s CNPC.
Gazprom and China’s CNPC signed a landmark $400 billion contract in May 2014 on the delivery of 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China annually for a period of 30 years.
Natural gas will be supplied to China via the Sila Sibiri (Power of Siberia) gas pipeline, the construction of which was launched by President Vladimir Putin on September 1.
The Power of Siberia gas pipeline estimated at over $21 billion is intended to pump 61 billion cubic meters of natural gas to the Russian Far East and China annually and will stretch over a distance of 3,968 km (2,465 miles).
The pipeline is designed to pump natural gas from the giant Chayanda oil and gas condensate deposit in Yakutia in northeast Russia and the Kovykta gas condensate field in the Irkutsk Region in Eastern Siberia. The Power of Siberia will run along the operational East Siberia - Pacific oil pipeline, crossing marshlands, mountainous and seismically active areas.
The gas pipeline’s first stage is scheduled to be commissioned in 2017.
