MOSCOW, June 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom is going to start laying the Power of Siberia gas pipeline in August 2014, as follows from the company’s news release following a conference on progress in the implementation of corporate investment projects crucial to gas export to China.

“We have a clear action plan. All duties have been distributed and tight deadlines established. Our target is to have the first pipeline joint welded as early as August,” Gazprom’s information office quotes the company’s CEO Alexei Miller as saying.

Power of Siberia agreed on May 21 under the 30-year $400 billion worth deal is aimed to transport 38 billion cubic meters of gas annually from Yakutsk and Irkutsk gas production centers to Russia’s Far East and China.

Gazprom is now preparing to equip the Chayanda hydrocarbon field in Yakutiya, construct a gas processing plant and the Amur gas transportation section to the border with China. Delivery of large-diameter pipes will start in July.