The construction site of China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline in Heihe, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province File photo: VCG

Construction was completed on Wednesday on the northern part of the China-Russia east route natural gas pipeline, which will be used to provide China with 5 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia in the first year starting on December 1, according to China's top oil and gas company.

The pipeline will directly benefit the northeastern and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regions in China and help ensure supplies of natural gas, as well as cut air pollution, the pipeline branch of China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) said in an article published on its WeChat account.

Covering 5,111 kilometers, the China-Russia east route natural gas pipeline project stretches from Heihe, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province to East China's Shanghai Municipality, through nine provinces. 

Construction started in June 2015 and the entire pipeline is expected to be put into use in 2024.

The CNPC pipeline branch is responsible for the construction and management of the project, and more than 20 companies and 4,000 workers are involved in the construction.

The project is the biggest long-distance pipeline for natural gas in China, as well as the country's first smart pipeline pilot project, it said.

It's also China's first domestically developed natural gas pipeline project, with technologies, materials and the supervisory control and data acquisition system 100 percent domestically created.

What's creative is that a "smart construction site" is being used for the project, where the construction process is remotely supervised and data is automatically collected and uploaded, CNPC said.

The two countries signed a cooperation memorandum on the east route natural gas pipeline in 2014. Under the memorandum, Russia was to start supplying natural gas to China via the pipeline in 2018. With an annual increase in natural gas supply, Russia will send 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China each year for a 30-year period.