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MOSCOW, June 29. /TASS/. Russia and China are launching the construction of China’s leg of the Sino-Russian Power of Siberia gas pipeline along the "Eastern route" on Monday. The opening ceremony will be held via a videoconference. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vice Premier of the Chinese State Council Zhang Gaoli will take part in the Moscow - Beijing - Heihe video bridge, the government press service reported.
Other video bridge participants are Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev, Energy Minister Alexander Novak, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, CEO of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) Wang Yilin and Wu Hong - General Manager of CNPC’s pipeline construction department.
On May 21, 2014, Russia’s natural gas monopoly Gazprom and China’s CNPC signed an agreement of the purchase and sale of gas on the "Eastern route." The contract, signed for 30 years, envisages the supply of Russian gas to China in the amount of 38 billion cubic metres per year. The "Eastern route" provides for the delivery to China of gas from the Yakutia and Irkutsk gas production centres through the Power of Siberia main pipeline.
Preparations for the launch of the gas pipeline which Moscow considers as a breakthrough project, is discussed at the highest level. So, this subject was addressed at talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. According to the Russian president, "the next stage will be the supply of natural gas to China on the ‘Western route’ - through the Altai main gas pipeline." The basic conditions for the implementation of this project were fixed in an agreement signed by Gazprom and PetroChina International. The Altai pipeline will link gas fields in Western Siberia with China; it will be some 2,700 km long and have capacity of about 30 billion cubic metres a year, with further increase to 100 billion cubic metres. The pipeline’s final point in China will be the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous area in the western part of the country where the Altai gas pipeline in the future will be connected the trans-China East-West pipeline. Natural gas supply through the Altai pipeline will be possible after 2020.
Russia and China now need to prepare and conclude a contract on the "Western route" gas supply. Previously, Alexei Miller said that Gazprom was in negotiations with the Chinese side on rouble and yuan settlements under the gas supply contract on the "Western route.".