MOSCOW, September 15. /ITAR-TASS/. A set of Western sanctions recently imposed against Moscow would boost cooperation between Russia and China in the fuel and energy sector, Gennady Timchenko, the head of the Russian-Chinese Business Council, said in an interview with Kommersant business daily.

According to him, Chinese services in the oil and gas sector had been already successfully competing with relevant US companies in some 30 countries.

“China’s Bureau of Geophysical Prospecting already works in Russia dealing with seismological prospecting in the Western Siberia,” Timchenko, who is also a co-owner of the Russian independent gas producer Novatek, said.

“CNPC also has its world-level technologies, while Huawei competes for the leading positions regarding information technologies in the oil and gas sector,” Timchenko said. “I believe that the western sanctions can seriously boost our [Russia-Chinese] cooperation.”

The West started to impose sanctions on Russia in March 2014 over the events in Ukraine. First, an early EU summit stalled the talks on a visa-free regime and a new base agreement on Russia-EU cooperation. Further on the sanctions were grouped into three categories - personal, corporate and sectoral.

By the beginning of September some 420 Russian individuals and 143 companies had been put on the sanction lists of the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Switzerland and Norway.

The most recent set of sanctions against Russia was introduced last week by the European Union and the United States.

Russia and China recently achieved a significant boost in their bilateral relations, primarily in the economic, energy, space and scientific as well as military spheres.

One of the milestone deals between the countries was signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China in May and it was an agreement on the Russian natural gas supplies to China.

Putin gave start on September 1 to the construction of the Sila Sibiri (Power of Siberia) gas pipeline intended to pump natural gas to the Russian Far East and China.

The Power of Siberia gas pipeline estimated at $21.3 billion 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).

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. The Power of Siberia will run along the operational East Siberia - Pacific gas pipeline, crossing marshlands, mountainous and seismically active areas.

The first stage envisages the construction of the Yakutia-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok trunk gas pipeline. During the second stage, the Irkutsk gas production center based on the Kovykta deposit will be connected with the Yakutia center based on the Chayanda field.

The gas pipeline’s first stage is scheduled to be commissioned in 2017.

The Chayanda oil and gas condensate field in the Lensky district of Yakutia was discovered in 1989. The field, one of Russia’s largest undeveloped deposits, holds about 1.45 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 93 million tons of liquid hydrocarbons. The field is expected to produce up to 25 billion cubic meters of natural gas and at least 1.5 million tons of oil annually.

The Kovykta gas condensate deposit discovered in 1987 is located in the north of the Irkutsk Region. The deposit’s reserves are estimated at 1.9 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, 2.3 billion cubic meters of helium and 115 million tons of liquid gas condensate.