The MoU was signed by Chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee Dr Alexey Miller and CNPC’s President, Zhou Jiping.
“The document is of long-term strategic nature, and determines the parameters of Russian natural gas supplies to China via the eastern route and establishes the framework for a 30-year contract for gas supplies from Russia to China,” Dr Miller said.
The Power of Siberia will become a unified gas-transmission system (GTS) for the Irkutsk and Yakutia gas production centres, and will export gas from there to Vladivostok via Khabarovsk.
The approximately 4,000 km Yakutia-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok gas trunkline will be constructed as part of the first stage; the second stage will connect Irkutsk to the Yakutia centre by a second gas pipeline.
The GTS route will run in parallel with the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline, that is currently operational, thus enabling streamlining of the infrastructure and power supply costs. Among other environmentally-difficult regions, the GTS route will pass through swampy, mountainous, and seismically hazardous areas.
The 56 inch diameter pipeline will have an annual design throughput of 61 Bcm.
In October, 2012, Gazprom’s Management Committee adopted the final investment decision on pre-development of the Chayandinskoye field, construction of the Yakutia-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok gas trunkline, as well as gas processing facilities in Belogorsk.
The first section of the Power of Siberia GTS – the Yakutia-Khabarovsk- Vladivostok gas trunkline – is expected to come on-stream in late 2017.