MOSCOW, March 04. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said on Tuesday that gas deliveries to Europe via the South Stream gas pipeline would begin at the end of December 2015.

“Everything proceeds as scheduled, the construction of onshore sections of the gas pipeline was launched on the territories of Bulgaria and Serbia,” Miller said at a meeting with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

He also said the amount of gas produced by Gazprom last year made up 487.5 billion cubic meters, with exports to Europe to the amount of 162 billion cubic meters. The main route of gas deliveries was through Ukraine, and more than 86 billion cubic meters of gas were delivered to Europe in transit via Ukraine.

He added that in May, Gazprom “will sign a contract with China for the supply of 38 billion cubic meters of gas, with the term of the contract making up 30 years”.

“We expect that the contract may be signed in May of this year,” Miller said.

“An agreement was reached with Chinese partners that as soon as a contract for gas deliveries from Eastern Siberia to the People’s Republic of China is signed, we will immediately launch negotiations on gas supplies on the western route, where the resource base is Western Siberia, which has been traditionally a resource base for gas deliveries to Europe,” Miller said.

“In the medium term we can bring gas deliveries in the Asian direction to the amount that will be comparable with gas deliveries to Europe,” he added.