MOSCOW, November 5. /TASS/. Gazprom and China have set the date for the official launch of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline for December 2, a source familiar with the company's plans told TASS.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said earlier that the construction is ahead of schedule and gas deliveries to China via the northern section of the pipeline (the Heihe-Changling section) will start earlier than planned — on December 1, 2019.

Initially, the launch of the pipeline was set for December 20.

The Power of Siberia gas pipeline 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 annually within 30 years. In May 2014, Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a respective sales and purchase agreement.

On October 29, Gazprom announced that it had completed the filling of the Power of Siberia pipeline. Gas from the Chayanda field was brought to the border gas measuring station near the city of Blagoveshchensk. That means that the line part of the gas pipeline was prepared for the start of pipeline gas deliveries to China.

Besides that, in 2015 Gazprom and CNPC inked an agreement on the basic conditions for pipeline gas supplies from Western Siberian fields to China via the "western" route (through the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline) and a memorandum of understanding on the project for natural gas pipeline supplies to China from the Russian Far East.