Russian President Vladimir Putin Chinese President Xi Jinping (centre) and President of Mongolia Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj [Image: PPIO]
Days after both Chinese and Russian Presidents were re-elected, the Russian energy giant Gazprom announced that a mammoth gas project between the two countries was nearing completion.
In May 2014, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping singed a landmark $400 billion gas deal under which Gazprom will supply the China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) 38 billion cubic meters (BCM) of natural gas every year for 30 years.
Gazprom on Wednesday said that the Power of Siberia natural gas pipeline is 75 per cent complete and runs over 1,600 kilometers.
The project will strengthen Russian-Chinese energy cooperation, and defines the main terms of the natural gas supply from Russia to China through the East-Route, including the cross-border section of the gas pipeline across the Amur River (the Heilongjiang River in China) near Blagoveshchensk (capital of the Amur region in the Russian Far East) and China’s border city of Heihe.
The pipeline has geopolitical and strategic value as it means Russia’s energy export targets are now eastward, and China can wean itself off the polluting coal as an energy supply.
The deal has brought both countries, BRICS members, closer and has been a massive boost to Sino-Russian ties even as Russia struggles with EU and US sanctions over Ukraine.
On Monday, Xi congratulated Putin on his landslide presidential election win. Putin did the same a few days earlier.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
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