Staff members from PipeChina conduct a daily inspection of the China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline in Qinhuangdao, North China's Hebei Province on November 1, 2022, aiming to strengthen inspections of the route and ensure the daily consumption of gas for households in the Beijing-Hebei-Tianjin region of North China. Photo: VCG

The Russian government has approved a draft intergovernmental agreement on gas supplies to China through the Far Eastern route, with the two countries encouraging payments in their own national currencies, Tass reported on Monday.

The main point of the draft agreement is to strengthen China-Russia cooperation in energy and regulate issues including construction and operation of the cross-border gas pipeline across the Ussuri River near the towns of Dalnerechensk, Russia and Hulin, in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, according to media reports.

According to Tass, the Russian cabinet tasked the Russian Ministry of Energy together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to hold talks with China and sign the agreement. The relevant cabinet decree has been posted on the official website.

"The draft shows that the cooperation between the two countries in energy will continue to accelerate. The draft provides for specifics of the pipeline operation, creating a good basis for the stable development of the project," Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Wednesday. 

According to Lin, the agreement is a further development of energy cooperation between Russian and Chinese companies, and the government officials have stepped in to help remove obstacles to cooperation, demonstrating the importance the two countries attach to energy cooperation.

On February 4, 2022, Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom announced it had signed a long-term agreement with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to supply natural gas to China via the Far Eastern Pipeline.

"As soon as the project reaches its full capacity, the amount of Russian pipeline gas supplies to China will grow by 10 billion cubic meters, totaling 48 billion cubic meters per year (including deliveries via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline)," according to a statement on Gazprom's official website. 

"This is a second contract to be signed for Russian gas supplies to China, and it is indicative of the exceptionally strong mutual trust and partnership between our countries and companies," said the statement, citing Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee Alexey Miller.

The gas pipeline project through the Far Eastern pipeline is new major energy cooperation between Russia and China. In 2014, Gazprom signed a contract with CNPC on gas supply via the China-Russia east-route pipeline, which agreed on a total gas supply of more than one trillion cubic meters, with an annual supply of 38 billion cubic meters lasting a period of 30 years.

The China-Russia eastern natural gas pipeline has raised its daily gas transmission capacity to 61 million cubic meters since its operation three years ago, and the annual gas transmission volume is expected to exceed 22 billion cubic meters in 2023, China Media Group reported earlier.

Global Times