BLAGOVESHCHENSK, September 19. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s Amur Region expects to receive 600 billion rubles ($15.6 billion) in investments under the contracts signed as part of Gazprom’s Power of Siberia project, the government’s press service said on Friday.

The construction of the pipeline, intended to pump natural gas to the Russian Far East and China, is expected to create jobs, increase the budget and bring gas to over 360 villages in the region, the statement said.

The government of the Amur Region, in Russia’s Far East, signed on Friday a range of agreements on cooperation with Gazprom Transgaz Tomsk, a subsidiary of Russia’s energy giant, and SIBUR, a gas processing and petrochemicals company.

“All the projects that we are fulfilling are in line with the standards. In this country, they are sometimes even stricter than abroad,” SIBUR Managing Director Pavel Lyakhovich, ruling out the possible environmental impact of the construction in the region.

On September 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave start to the construction of the Power of Siberia (Sila Sibiri) gas pipeline, estimated at $21.3 billion. The pipeline is intended to pump 61 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually and will stretch over a distance of 3,968 km (2,465 miles).

Russian energy giant Gazprom and China’s CNPC signed a $400 billion contract in May 2014 for the delivery of 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China annually for a period of 30 years.

The pipeline is designed to pump natural gas from the giant Chayanda oil and gas condensate deposit in Yakutia in northeast Russia and the Kovykta gas condensate field in the Irkutsk Region in Eastern Siberia.