(China’s Resource Risks) The Power of Siberia pipeline is finally shipping Russian gas to China as of December 2019, after nearly thirty years of discussion. Despite this dilatory timeline, plans for a second Russia-China pipeline, to be completed by 2030, are coalescing. The new project, Power of Siberia 2, would channel up to 50 billion cubic meters of gas from the Yamal Peninsula in the Russian Arctic to eastern China via Mongolia through a 6,000 km (3,728 miles) long pipeline. On August 25, 2020 Gazprom Chairman Alexei Miller signed a Memorandum of Intent with Mongolian Deputy Prime Minister Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh to establish a company that would execute a feasibility study for the Mongolian portion of the pipeline. The pipeline is likely to be discussed at the Russia-China-Mongolia trilateral meeting that typically occurs at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, postponed until November 2020.
For the past five years, Gazprom and China have talked about the Altai route, which would involve a pipeline from Russia via the mountainous Altai region across the narrow border to western China. While China prefers the security of a direct pipeline with no transit countries, other gas pipelines already flow from Central Asia to western China. Moreover, the greatest demand for gas in China is in its more developed eastern regions. […]
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