VLADIVOSTOK, September 12. /TASS/. Russia and China have agreed to get approval for gas supplies via the Power of Siberia’s ‘western route’ in the shortest possible time, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Wednesday.

"Chinese President Xi Jinping set the task of getting approval for gas supplies via the western route in the shortest possible time at the talks (with Russian President Vladimir Putin - TASS) yesterday," he said, adding that "an agreement is to be reached regarding around 30 bln cubic meters (of gas)."

Currently, Gazprom is building the Power of Siberia gas pipeline, which will pump natural gas from the giant Chayanda oil and gas condensate deposit in Yakutia and the Kovykta gas condensate field in the Irkutsk Region in Eastern Siberia to deliver gas to the domestic market (via Khabarovsk to Vladivostok) and further on for exports to China. The so-called ‘eastern route’ stipulates the supply of 38 bln cubic meters of natural gas to China’s eastern regions annually within 30 years to be launched in end-2019. In May 2014, Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a respective sales and purchase agreement. The ‘western route’, which envisions the delivery of 30 bln cubic meters of gas from Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region through the Altai Region to northwest China within 30 years, has been defined as the second in terms of importance.